Snakes or Slugs
by Ed Azalea
Summary: Cassandra Frasier just wanted a normal life... so much for that. With some new friends that land her in the middle of an intergalactic war, who can tell what's going to happen next?
1. Slugs

**Chapter One**

Marco couldn't help but let out a long, low wolf whistle as one of the girls passed him, tight pink leotard hugging a very shapely part of her anatomy. Marco's eyes were glued to the swaying muscle and fabric as she walked away. His naturally tanned complexion, dark, short cropped hair and dark eyes left little room for doubt that he was indeed fairly hot, but still most of the leotard clad girls were simply ignoring him as they walked by.

"Remind me why I don't volunteer to pick up Rachel more often?" Marco asked his best friend and sometimes leader as the two leaned up against the fence just outside of the very prestigious gymnastics center. She'd been on the waiting list since she was ten, and had strictly informed the others that, alien invasion or no alien invasion, she was going. Marco suddenly became aware of the death glare he was receiving from the father of 'hot pink leotard' and visibly flinched before waving as innocently as possible.

"That's why," Jake couldn't help but snicker at Marco's flinch. With pale skin, blond hair and blue eyes he was Marco's physical opposite, the almost full foot of height he had on the shorter boy didn't help any, but he couldn't help but feel closer to the other boy than he did to his own brother… though considering his brother was practically possessed that was hardly surprising.

"Any word from Erek on the Party?" Marco asked innocently. Jake understood the subtext. After nearly seven years there was no need for further explanation any more.

"Nope, upper classman are being all tight lipped about it," Jake responded easily in code. Marco mentally translated- if the Chee supervisors knew what the Yeerks were planning they weren't sharing the information.

"Screw them man, they're always jerks. We'll just have our own party. My place or Cassie's?" Translation; maybe it's time we considered making the first move.

"You're place. Cassie had a sick skunk in the barn last week- she still can't get the smell out." There was no translation needed for that as both boys wrinkled their noses at the prospect.

"Sounds cool man- oh man oh man oh man…" somewhere during his response Marco had been distracted by a stunning young Russian in a sleek black leotard, nude leggings only enhancing the long muscular legs that seemed to stretch on forever and ever. Biting down on a knuckle and clutching desperately at Jake's shoulder with his other hand as a manly whimper escaped him.

"You're pathetic," both boys turned around to see Rachel standing there, blond hair held up in a high tight bun to keep it out of her way, loose windbreaker over her pink leotard and black leggings, an exasperated expression on her face. Marco looked like he was going to attempt a witty retort, but was cut off as Rachel addressed a pretty girl fiddling with her cell phone only a few feet away. "Hey Cassie."

The girl looked up, briefly confused for a moment before spotting Rachel and smiling. Dirty blond hair was tied up into a high pony tail on the top of her head. Bright green eyes were set into a lightly tanned complexion, a light smattering of freckles spread out across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. "Hey Rachel. Can I borrow your cell? My battery just died."

"Yeah, who're you calling?" Rachel replied as she fished through her bag for her outrageously outdated, but battle tested cell. She was surprised to see that Cassie's looked even older and hardier. A soft cough to her left brought her attention to the two boys standing awkwardly over her left shoulder. "Oh, this is my cousin Jake and his annoying friend Marco."

"Hi Cassie. I'm Marco, the man of you're dreams. So, do you want a spring wedding, or are you more of a fall girl?"

"Oh, hi," the new girl greeted with a polite smile, effectively ignoring Marco's rather lame come on. "I'm just calling triple A- my car won't start."

Rachel mentally scolded herself as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She remembered back in the beginning, when the Yeerks had targeted people one at a time by tampering with their cars and stranding them alone, it didn't help her nerves any as she glanced around and realized that the four of them were now the only one's left in the now empty parking lot. But that tactic hadn't been employed in ages. Not since they'd gathered the necessary numbers to start turning people in large groups. Seeing Marco and Jake's surreptitious glances, she felt slightly better about her own reaction- right up until a snapping twig in the tree line just beyond the gymnastics center sent her crouching into a defensive stance and searching for the best tactical position. To her surprise Cassie was already standing there. Despite the fact that the ground was soggy and muddy and staining her white shoes, Cassie was standing on the slightly elevated hill of land clearly away from all the big trees with a rapid escape route clear through to the highway and the best offered view of the surrounding area.

"Ok, I vote we bail now," Marco announced suddenly, his voice not wavering at all. Nope. Not at all. In no way did he just sound like a scarred little five year old girl. "Can we go now?" Well… maybe just a little bit….

"Yeah, why don't we give you a ride home today Cassie? I've got to drop off Rachel again tomorrow anyways," Jake suggested, proud that he managed to keep the abruptness from his voice despite the fact that his internal alarms were screaming at him to get out of there. Seeing the other girls nervous glance back towards her car he cut off her objections before she could even voice them. "My friend Max is pretty good with cars. He can probably figure out what's wrong with it and fix it for you if you want."

Relief flooded through the girls face as she nodded gratefully and the quartet began moving swiftly towards Jake's mom's minivan. They were nearly at the car when the breeze shifted.

With the rustling of branches came the raining of leaves, and a few innocuous soggy little bits of something. Rachel and Jake were standing at the doors to the minivan when the rain of leaves settled on Cassie and Marco. Glancing at his shoulder, Marco nearly jumped out of his skin and frantically swatted at the fallen bits of goo before shedding his jacket. Jake and Rachel turned around just in time to see him abruptly relieve Cassie of her jacket, ripping it off her shoulders and shaking it out violently, spraying off bits of good before turning back towards the van and practically dragging Cassie along behind him. Cassie seemed mildly grossed out by the bits of goo, but equally annoyed at being to abruptly manhandled. Marco on the other hand had his mouth set into a thin hard line, eyes shuttered as he took quick, solid steps towards the van. He had only a one word response to Jake and Rachel's raised eyebrows and questioning looks. "Slugs."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Cassie sat snuggled in the far corner of the big fluffy couch that Uncle Jack had gotten her from good will when she'd moved into the tiny studio apartment. Both her mom and Aunt Sam had insisted that the moth eaten old lump wasn't suitable for a young girls style, but Cassie had risen to Jack's defense- style doesn't matter much when the pretty looking couch is so incredibly uncomfortable that no one would ever want to sit on it. And besides, it wasn't as if she had a whole lot of people coming over. The apartment was walking distance from Campus and less than a twenty minute drive from the gymnastics studio. With her mom, Sam, and Daniel all tutoring her, it really wasn't that surprising that she'd managed to finish high school a half a year early. Convincing them to let her leave their sight, let alone the state, had been the real challenge. Bayville Community College didn't have any real scholastic advantages or anything, although the liberal arts program was rather nice, but it was the close proximity to the gymnastics program that had called to her.

Cassie had started doing gymnastics when she was fourteen, following along in Teal'c martial arts moves, taking Yoga with her mom and Sam, and even boxing occasionally with Jack. But it had actually been Silar's daughter, Monica, who had first introduced her to gymnastics. She'd been hooked ever since, and when the opportunity to attend one of _his_ programs had opened up she'd been over the moon.

She'd told her mom about how great Vaughn Dragonovhich had been in the Olympics thirty years ago. About how when the Olympics had been scheduled in his home country, but he had been barred from competing due to his mothers Romani heritage and his fathers connections to a local resistance militia, so he had defected to the US in order to be eligible to compete. He'd taken gold that year. She'd told her about the scholarships available to her to pay for the programs fees. She'd told her about the community college, and continuing her education. About the freedom that a liberal arts program provided and about safe but affordable student housing. She'd told her mom all that, but in the end it only really came down to one thing. She really, really wanted this. And that was it- that was all she'd needed to hear.

So now here she was, sitting in the corner of a comfortable, ratty old moth eaten couch in a big fluffy robe, her hair still wet from her shower, a piece of left over pizza drenched in ranch, chicken nuggets and hot sauce, and flipping through re-runs of Wormhole X-Treme. He white sneakers, stained with mud during her brief but unsettling altercation at the gym were sitting on a towel in the kitchen, still drying after she'd cleaned them.

Her phone was sitting on the end table next to her, plugged in and charging. She glanced at it briefly, wondering if she should call her mom. She'd had a headache just about all day, but it had gotten steadily worse as the afternoon progressed. She had almost passed out when they were making their way to Rachel's cousins car, and then that slug shower had only made it worse. It wasn't until she was nearly home that the dull ache right behind her forehead had started to fade. Maybe it was environmental? Like allergies or something? Daniel always said he got headaches when his allergies were acting up, but that was more like… like sinus pressure or something. She really hoped she wasn't allergic to anything at the gym. Not that something as silly as headaches would keep her from attending after she'd worked so hard to get there, but still…. Her temples throbbed again briefly and Cassie set down her pizza and the remote, bringing up her hands to slowly massage the tension from her head as she rubbed slow small circles at her temples. She hadn't had a headache this bad since… not since she'd last come in contact with Nirti.

She was up and off the couch in only a moment, heading swiftly towards the small apartments modest kitchenette and pulling out a bottle of aspirin from one of the few cupboards. Grabbing a glass from another she tapped out two of the small white pills into her hand and ran the faucet to fill her glass of water. She couldn't be having one of those, it just wasn't possible. Look at her, inventing alien invasions just to have a reason to call her mother. She didn't need a reason, she knew her mother would fly out at the drop of a hat if Cassie ever gave the slightest indication of missing her. She didn't need to make anything up. This was just a stress headache. That was it. She was just staying up too late studying or something.

Cassie furrowed her brow at the faucet, which was only just trickling out a slightest bit of water, despite the tap being put on full blast. Despite the flare of discomfort the action drew from her headache, Cassie ducked her head down to get a better look at the tap, and promptly let loose a shriek that she would later fully deny. Her glass had dropped onto the faux wood laminate floor and shattered, her foot cut on a sharp piece of the broken glass, but Cassie hardly noticed as she scurried across the little apartment, leaving a bloody footprint trailing behind her. In the closet by the front hall she still had the little net from when she'd tried her hand at owning a pet. The fish survived for three weeks before it died, finally convincing Cassie that she should never be allowed to be responsible for any sort of living creature. But the skimming net was still in the now empty glass tank at the bottom of her closet, along with the rest of the abandoned food and other fish supplies. Grabbing the net, she dashed back to the kitchen, this time mindful to avoid the worst of the spray of broken glass. Sticking the skimmer under the faucet, she cut the water for a moment before turning it on again full blast. With a slightly disgusting plop and accompanying squelch, an ugly little slug like creature freed itself from the tap and dropped safely into the net Cassie had provided, quickly followed by a rapid deluge of water before she could cut the tap again. Making her way to the window, Cassie glanced down and, finding a reasonably soft looking bush, upturned the net and dumped the slimy little thing out the window.

She hadn't seen the bird before, blended as it was with the rest of branches in a nearby tree, but she saw it now. She jumped back a little at the startling screech the bird let out, diving after the insect and snatching it up before it even had the chance to touch down. She frowned slightly before shrugging and shutting the window behind her as she headed back to the kitchen to pick up the bits of broken glass. She hadn't intended to kill the ugly little thing, regardless of how disgusting and intrusive it had been, but at least the hawk had gotten a good lunch out of the deal. And on the bright side, at least now her headache was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Lucy! I'm Home!" Marco called cheerfully into the somewhat grimy but obviously well lived in little house. Jake and Rachel followed in behind him, each carrying two shopping bags from the grocery store. Jake just rolled his eyes and set his load down on the table in the dinning alcove while Rachel shoved past the still grinning boy, his eyes sparkling with mirth and amusement, and stomped into the kitchen where Ax's head, thankfully human, had appeared from around the corner, a damp frying pan held in the dishtowel in his hands as he finished drying it.

"I fail to understand why you insist on greeting me as such," Ax said with more than a hint of confusion in his normally neutral voice. "My name is not Lucy, and I am fully aware when you return to the domicile- you are not the most subtle individual."

"House, Ax," Marco groaned with a role of his eyes as he perched himself onto the back of the living room couch in order to still talk to his friends. The recliner in the corner of the room, though facing in the right direction, sat silent and unused, as it had for over a year now. "It's called a house. And I know you watch enough daytime TV to get an I Love Lucy reference."

"He get's it," Rachel commented shortly from the kitchen, where she was finishing putting away the things from her bags into Marco's cupboards. Hading back into the alcove to grab the bags Jake had put down, she tossed her blond hair over her shoulder huffily before striding back into the kitchen. "It's just that it's not funny."

"Oh! How you wound me so!" Marco cried out in badly dramatized mock agony, clutching at his chest before slumping loudly over the back of the couch and landing heavily into the soft cushions.

"Anyone know where Cassie is?" Jake asked, choosing not to comment on Marco's performance. Though his friends actions would have once had him laughing and joining in on the fun, now it went largely unnoticed and ignored.

"She is still tending to an injured raccoon," Ax informed him succinctly as he finished drying the pan and put it away in the cupboards. "She has informed me that she will be along shortly, and that Erek shall most likely be accompanying her."

"Great, maybe now we can finally get some freaking answers!" Marco's voice called out, muffled as it carried over the back of the couch. He hadn't bothered to move from where he'd landed, sprawled out on the comfortable cushions.

"Answers to what?" Cassie asked innocently as she stepped through the unlocked front door, Erek following shortly behind her. Her mass of curly black hair was pulled back by a red kerchief, bits of straw sticking out her hair here and there and stuck onto her dusty overalls, worn at the knees and stained suspiciously with what looked like it could have, at one point in time, been blood. Erek was standing nonchalantly behind her, mop of curly blond hair settled on a reasonably attractive, if somewhat awkward looking, face. His clothes were non descript, and if you passed him on the sidewalk you wouldn't even give it a second though- just like he liked it. It was hard to remember sometimes what the blank human projection covered up beneath it. If you passed a giant metal wolf on two legs on the sidewalk- that you would most _definitely_ notice.

"Hi," Jakes shy greeting and small smile were returned by a faint blush coloring Cassie's cocoa colored skin.

"Hi." The two of them were smiling faintly, each blushing as they just looked at one another.

"Much as I love watching you two make goo-goo eyes at each other, can we move this along please?" Marco had sat up on the couch now, and had draped his arms over the backside of it so that he could be facing them all when he talked. Cassie and Jakes respective blushes only deepened and the two moved to sit down at the tiny little dinning table in the alcove, their hands linking none too subtly beneath the flimsy wood. Marco just rolled his eyes and turned back to the only lightly interested holographic face of their resident android. "So Cyborg, you want to tell us what's up with you tin heads lately?"

Erek didn't sigh, but it looked as though he would have- if he actually needed to breath. "I've explained this to you before Marco- we are androids, not cyborgs."

"Androids, Cyborgs, what the difference?" Marco grumped with a shrug, throwing in an eye roll for good measure.

"Cyborgs were originally organic in nature, with mechanical and technological advancements," Erek explained with tone of one who doesn't actually expect for their words to be remembered, or even really listened to. "But as for your previous question, the Council is growing increasingly concerned on the lack of chatter we've been intercepting from the Yeerks lately."

"Isn't that a good thing though?" Cassie asked hopefully. "Maybe they've decided we're too much trouble or something."

Jake squeezed his sort-of girlfriends hand supportively under the table before offering her a small, wry smile. "Somehow, I just don't think that's going to happen."

"They've invested way too much in this war," Rachel put in from where she was leaning against the wall outside the kitchen. Ax was standing silently behind her, arms wrapped around his thin frame protectively as he stared introspectively at a small spec of dirt on the floor some two feet away from where he stood, uncharacteristically silent. "There's no way they'd just pull out after all this. No, if their going quiet then it means they've already got something in the works. Don't want to risk screwing it up by getting anything intercepted."

"Rachel is right," Erek confirmed solidly. "Six billion potential human hosts is too much of a prize for them to ever just walk away from. I'm afraid the only way they would ever give up is if they were faced with complete and total destruction. Whatever they have planned- it has to be big. End game proportions even."

Everyone paused at that definition. They always knew it was a possibility, that they wouldn't win this war. But to have it brought up so suddenly… it felt an awful lot like if they had just been walking down the sidewalk only to have a clown come up behind them and hit them in the face really hard with a really cold fish.

"Yeah, well could this plan have anything to do with Yeerks raining down out of a tree?" Marco's voice brought everyone out of their ruminations, and though his words were light and spoken in their usual sarcastic tone, his expression brokered none of that same amusement. For once, Marco was deadly serious.

"I beg your pardon?" was Ereks politely confused and befuddled response.

"When the boys picked me up from gymnastics we were nearly caught in a slug storm. They literally rained down from the trees as we were walking under them," Rachel recounted sternly, searching the projection of Erek's face vainly for any sign of a visceral emotional reaction.

"Yeah," Jake concurred, hesitantly, before looking back to Rachel for conformation. "But they didn't start until after you and I had already gone by, remember? They only got Marco and Cassie."

The Cassie present looked to Jake in obvious confusion, while Marco shivered dramatically at the memory.

"Don't remind me man," he snapped, discomfort and fear obvious below the mask of annoyance and sarcastic bravado. "I nearly got one of those suckers in my ear!"

"What do you mean 'Cassie'? I wasn't anywhere near the gymnastics center today," this Cassie asked, sounding very slightly hurt. Uncertain as to how Jake could misinterpret her actual presence.

"No, not you babe," Rachel cut in, soothing her friends vague and unfounded worries. "One of the girls from gymnastics. Her name's Cassie, too."

"Well that won't get confusing," Marco quipped with a roll of his eyes. He was, as per usual, ignored. Jake was soothing Cassie's idle worries as Rachel was about to ask Erek something, when Ax finally spoke up. His words cut through the air, quiet and innocent enough as they were, as everyone else fell silent at their impact.

"So who was their intended target? Cassie? Or us?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

Several timid looking scientists ducked sharply as the table went sailing through the room and smashed up against the far wall, falling to the ground in a rain of wood chunks, broken splinters, and bits of glass from former lab equipment. The scientist avoided eye contact as a rage filled, blood curdling scream tore through the lab.

"What do you mean she escaped!" The middle aged but trim looking bald man screeched, spittle flying from his mouth as his face swiftly contorted into an ugly beet red prune shape. "How did a stupid little Terran girl manage to outsmart and outmaneuver SEVEN covert controllers?"

"The agents didn't even have a chance to launch their full assault. She had moved into the target range before they would even get into position," one scientist commented speculatively. A resounding smack later and the controller in question was laying on the ground, clutching his rapidly reddening cheek and split lip as Visser Three clenched and unclenched his fist reflexively.

"She wasn't alone sir," one of the slightly braver controllers defended briefly.

"WHAT?" The Vissers roar shattered any remaining confidence that the controller had possessed and the young man quickly stepped back to escape his masters wrath.

"What he means to say," came a seductively calm voice from the back of the room. "Is that the girl was accompanied by three other children during your eloquently planned 'ambush'." The sarcasm was thick in the beautiful woman's voice, dark, luscious hair shifting and falling over her shoulders as she raised her arm to do air quotes. "And that they managed to shuttle the target out of there before your idiot henchmen could fully clear the surrounding area. And really? Sending un-hosted agents through the _plumbing_? How degrading can you really _get_ Visser Three."

"My lady," Visser three all but growled out the formal address, the gnashing of his teeth audible from clear across the lab. "I was unaware that you would be visiting us this afternoon. What an unexpected _treat_." Everyone in the room could hear the venom dripping from his voice, but the woman simply smiled coldly at the angry little bald man before her.

"My dear Visser. I only come to provide the love and support that only a mother can give. And, as needed, the discipline," the sickly sweet quality that the woman's voice had taken on turned razor hard and ice cold as she leveled her gaze on the now clearly seething man before her. "Since you are clearly incapable of successfully carrying out even the simplest of missions, I have been placed in charge of the infestation of the Terran girl. You, on the other hand, are now in charge of gathering supplies. And if that task proves too difficult for you… well, the kandrona pools always need cleaning."

No one dared speak as the woman glided serenely from the room, everyone avoiding the eye contact of the man left shaking in rage in her wake.

Deep in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, a little red warning light was blinking on a small oblong metal object buried amongst the piles and boxes of confiscated alien technology in a rarely occupied lab that, at this point in time, was largely used for storage. It was in this lab that Jay Felger was currently hiding out- trying desperately to find some semblance of a coherent idea from the chaos in his head. His last big project had blown up in his face, quite literally, and had take half a bomb shelter with it and made the entire thirty second level smell like burnt cheese for over a week. The marines still didn't seem to have forgiven him for that, as he found himself being roughly brushed up against and 'accidentally' knocked against walls at a far higher rate than what was usually expected of an absent minded scientist- even for him. And he was a whole new level of absent minded. To top it all off, the Engineer's lounge had been totally out of coffee!

Equations for the energy distribution and crystallography readings from the experimental new version of the Zat gun that he'd been working on for the last three months were spread out before him in a fan of ordered chaos. Many more pages and diagrams had been tacked or taped onto the wall before him, and some were even affixed to the ceiling above his little private corner of nowhere. He just couldn't figure out why the power conversions were going wonky… maybe it was the energy source? It could be the relay… or maybe the firing mechanism? He scratched angrily at his head and stared at the diagrams and papers before him… something was off. He was sure of it. He could see his design clearly in his head, but it wasn't quite matching up with the real life specs. Where was he messing up? It had to be something small- it was always something small, something simple and unobtrusive but so fundamentally vital that it would send the entire project into an inevitable tropic cascade failure and… was that rock blinking at him?

"Oh crap."

apparently passive assessment of the room. The tension in her shoulders and the sharpness of her gaze gave her away though. The other girl was deeply unsettled. In fact, the look in her eyes reminded her of Uncle Jack. It was the same overly cautious but equally prepared look that Jack got when he was put into a military situation that he either didn't like or didn't trust. Like he was waiting for things to go wrong, but he was fully capable of handling them once they did.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Cassandra sat with her legs folded in front of her, the soles of her feet pressed firmly together as she pulled her heels in towards her center and leaned forward, exhaling sloly, keeping her back straight. She could feel the burn stretch down her inner thighs, lower back, up her sides, and even on her back around her shoulder blades as she let out another deep breath and deepened the stretch. She loved this feeling. Of each individual muscle burning as it's brought to it's limits, of the warmth the spread throughout her body letting her know that her blood vessels were dilating, delivering greater amounts of nutrients and oxygen to the muscle cells as their demand increased with her physical exertion. When she stretched, it was like her body was buzzing into life for the very first time, every time. Her mind calmed and reached new levels of clarity, and any feelings of fear, anger, or negativity slowly left her. When she finished a particularly intense stretching routine or Yoga session, it felt like she was invincible. Like nothing could hold her back.

Other girls were stretching, practicing their routines on the balance beams, or just standing around chatting as they waited for their instructor. As she eased her body out of the last stretch of her routine, her gaze scanned lazily towards the far wall. She shouldn't have had time to finish her full routine, as Rachel didn't come in quite as early as she usually did, but strangely she didn't feel rushed in the slightest. Focusing here eyes on the clock on the wall she been gazing at absently for a few moments, she started when she realized that Director Vaughn was a full fifteen minutes late for their class. Perhaps not entirely unusual for some, but this was the man who considered five minutes early to be late. Glancing around the room, she met Rachel's gaze as the other girl scanned the room and shot the girl a questioning look. Rachel just shrugged before turning back to her apparently passive assessment of the room. The tension in her shoulders and the sharpness of her gaze gave her away though. The other girl was deeply unsettled. In fact, the look in her eyes reminded her of Uncle Jack. It was the same overly cautious but equally prepared look that Jack got when he was put into a military situation that he either didn't like or didn't trust. Like he was waiting for things to go wrong, but he was fully capable of handling them once they did.

The door at the far end of the gym swung open with a bang, slamming against the wall as Vaughn's assistant came striding across the map. His full name was Dimitri Artera Gregorovhich, and was completely un-pronounceable on the first try, but everyone just called him Greg. The one time Russian Olympian contender whose career had ended when his sexual orientation had come into question by the Russian government was striding across the mats, muttering under his breath in what sounded like Russian. The girls all scrambled to attention, arranging themselves in a singular huddle around the practice beam as Greg came up to them. 

"Vaughn sends message. He is unable to attend today. We are all to work on routines for Recital. He will be in tomorrow." Greg's accent was thick and muddled by the obvious irritation in his voice.

"Is he okay?" It was one of the braver girls who finally spoke up, and Cassie just breathed out in relief that it she hadn't had to do it. The concerned expression on her face, and on all of their faces, was sincere, and Greg's expression softened slightly, running a hand across the back of his neck tiredly.

"I do not know. But he will be in tomorrow, so it cannot be too serious, Ja?" A charming smile from the twenty eight year old had every single girl cursing the fact that he was gay, and the crowds soon dispersed into separate corners of the gym to run through different portions of their routines.

Even as Cassie began to wander off into her own little corner of the gym though, her head was buzzing. It just didn't add up. Vaughn was almost Nazi like when it came to punctuality. He'd even come in when his mother had died, so what could be so bad that he would skip today? And why had he emailed instead of calling? Everyone here knew that Vaughn, despite years of trying to learn, hopelessly illiterate in English. He said the letters looked too much alike. So why would he have sent an email, that would have probably taken him hours to write out even a few lines, instead of calling?

Double checking that Greg was distracted with another student and that all the other girls were mostly focused on their own routines, she headed back towards the water fountains just around the corner of the gym doors by the bathrooms and glanced down at the end of the hall to where the door to Vaughn's office lay.

The door to Vaughn's office was shut. Not only that, but it was apparently locked as well. Vaughn's door was always kept open- mostly because the tiny room had no air condition and would become stiflingly warm if the door was kept closed. A lock of dirty blond hair fell into her eyes as Cassie pulled out and straightened a bobby pin, bending it into shape and checking the hall one last time before kneeling in front of the door and slipping in the pin. Thank goodness for her Uncle Jack, she thought as the door slid open with a satisfying click. Stepping quietly into the room, she refrained from turning on any lights, not wanting to alert anyone to her presence, and instead shut the door silently behind her.

The sight in front of her was definitely not what she had been expecting. She'd thought that she would find a message on the answering machine, or a document left up on the computer, or a memo left lying around. Maybe a suspicious finger print that stood out to the naked eye like they always seemed to find in the TV shows or something. But she definitely had not been expecting this.

The office had been trashed. Papers were everywhere, books thrown off the shelves, chairs tipped over. The computer monitor was still sitting on his desk, but the wires coming out the back just hung loosely in the open space. They'd taken the CPU. Cassie took a tentative step forward and heard something crack softly under her foot. Taking a hurried step backwards, she knelt down to look at the thing she'd stepped on. The picture frame that Vaughn always kept on his desk, the one of himself and his daughter Talia, when she'd won the gold in the Junior Olympics, was lying shattered and broken on the floor, the frame snapped violently and the glass shattered far beyond what she'd been capable of doing just by stepping on it. Cassie suddenly didn't want to be here anymore. Whatever had happened here, it had been bad. A violent intrusion of the worst possible kind, and she just couldn't bring herself to invade her instructors privacy any further by being witness to the damage they, whoever 'they' were, had caused.

Cassie almost stepped on a lizard in her hurry, the little thing skittering swiftly across the flood beneath her foot before she could close the door softly behind her. She was already halfway down the hall when Rachel came out of the bathroom. But the other blond didn't seem to notice her- no, scratch that, the other blond seemed to actively be trying NOT to notice her. Rachel walked stiffly back into the gym, not once looking at Cassie frozen in the hallway. When Rachel was out of sight, Cassie let out the breath she didn't seem to have realized that she was holding. Plans already in mind to call the first family member she could get a hold of as soon as she got back to her apartment tonight, she calmly re-entered the gym and resumed her practice as if nothing at all unusual had happened. Nothing was wrong, everything was fine… but if that was true, then why wouldn't her headache just go away?


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"I'm telling you guys, it was definitely odd," Rachel insisted as she stood huddled together with Marco and Jake. The pair had returned, this time with Cassie- their Cassie, not new Cassie- in tow. "Vaughn is never gone like this, and I mean _never_. And Cassie was way to interested in what was going on. Who here is in the habit of just randomly breaking into their instructors office?" A silent look was exchanged amongst the group before a few raised eyebrows turned back to face Rachel. "Never mind. Forget I asked."

"So the new girl thinks she's Nancy Drew. Big deal," Marco replied non-chalantly. "We worried she's going to put three and seven together and come up with evil alien space slugs and super powered teenagers?"

"Morphing can hardly be considered a super power Marco," Cassie put in mildly.

"What are you talking about?" Marco practically yelled back. Jake quickly shushed his friend, trying to prevent any unwanted attention from the gymnastics students still milling about the front of the gym as they waited for or were getting into their rides. Marco, thankfully, calmed down and quickly lowered his voice, but his argument lost none of its excitement. "We can turn into any animal we want at the drop of a hat and use this ability to fight off alien invaders on the weekends! How is that _not_ a superpower?"

Cassie shrugged, looking half amused and half startled at Marco's vehement defense of their abilities. "I don't know. I guess I just never really thought of it like that."

"Thought of what?" the group spun around as though Visser Three had just sprung up from thin air to see a mildly surprised Cassandra standing behind them.

"Video games," Marco spouted randomly. Cassie (the blond one that is) was still looking at him in confusion, her head cocked lightly to the side in mild interest. "I've been working on creating this video game with my friend Max where evil alien slugs invade the planet and you have to fight them off and save the world and stuff."

"Sounds… kind of formulaic," Cassie (still blond) responded honestly. "I think you just described like half of the video games out there today. Sorry."

Marco looked almost disappointed for a moment before a huge grin split his face. "Ah, yes- but you haven't heard the twist yet! The slugs are tiny, and they can't live outside of a host, so they go in people's ears and take over their bodies. So you have to fight off the invasion, but you never really know who's on what side. And the only thing stopping the aliens from taking over is a group of kids that were given the ability to change into any animals whose DNA they've 'acquired' by a dying alien from another world that is also fighting the ye- slugs. What do you think of it now?"

Jake barely suppressed a snort and an eye roll. Leave it to the class clown to turn their entire seven year mission into the plot for a crappy video game. But Cassie now looked honestly interested.

"Now that actually sounds cool- so long as you don't include a cheat code for X-Ray goggles or something that let you see whose infested- that would be way too easy. Let me know if you need any help programming the animals body types, I think I could help out with that."

"You like animals?" Cassie (Jake's Cassie) spoke up, her interest peaked.

"Yeah, I used to volunteer at an animal clinic back home- it was the only medical office that would take minors, and seeing that I was still underage..."

"That's so cool! I work at my family's animal clinic outside of town. Their both vets- you should totally come by sometime! We could definitely use the help."

Jake shot Cassie (his Cassie) a sharp look, but before he had the chance to interject, Rachel had already spoken up.

"Oh, I totally forgot! Cassie, this is our friend… Cassie…" Rachel trailed off lamely, looking between the two girls uncertainly.

"Yes?" both Cassie's said at the same time.

"Our Cassie is an animal nut," Rachel tried to disentangle the situation.

"Well I wouldn't exactly say that," Cassie (blond) replied with a wrinkled nose.

"No, not gymnastics Cassie- _Cassie_," Marco tried to clarify.

"What?" Cassie (animorphs) asked, clearly confused.

"Cassie is my girlfriend," Jake put in, trying to clear up the issue.

"_Excuse me_?"

"No, not you Cassie, our Cassie," Rachel said as she tried to help.

"Whose Cassie?" Marco asked, at this point completely lost.

"I am," both Cassie's responded helpfully at the same time. The other three looked on in complete dispair when a pair of light bulbs went off in the two Cassie's heads. Cassie (blond) just laughed and stuck out her hand.

"Hi Cassie, I'm Cassie. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too Cassie."

"Oh great- I'm getting a headache," Marco grumbled half heartedly from the side lines. The two Cassie's just laughed, still shaking hands, before turning to smile at the confused looking boy.

"I think, for convenience sake, it's probably better if I go by Cassandra from now on," Cassie, scratch that, _Cassandra_ said with a politely amused smile.

"I think that's probably for the best," _Cassie _said with a laugh.

"Great! Now shall we see how the guys are doing on your car?" Rachel suggested, relieved to have the two Cassie's situation finally sorted.

"Sure," Cassandra said promptly, looking across the by now mostly abandoned parking lot to where two teenage boys were standing over her car bickering. "Are you sure these guys are as good as you said they were?"

"Sure I'm sure! They're only the top two most intelligent life forms on the planet," Marco proclaimed happily, scampering off to join his friends before Jake could smack him upside the head. "Hey guys! Wassup?"

The two boys looked up as the rest of the group followed Marco at a more sedate pace. One was completely average looking. Messy blond hair, grey eyes, clothes that lacked any distinguishing features or logos. If she had passed him on the street she probably never would have noticed him. The other boy she definitely would have noticed. He wasn't exactly what she would call good looking, but he was definitely distinct. A mop of curly black hair threatened to explode into a full on afro if it got any bigger. Blue eyes and long, pointed features made him the most distinct. But the wild gesturing and odd way in which he moved didn't help any. She was tempted to ask if he had some sort of neurological condition- maybe cerebral palsy?- but by then they were already too close and he would over hear them. Not the best first impression she wanted to make with one of the guys who was fixing her car- for free no less!

When the rest of the group had gotten close enough to overhear the boys talking to Marco, the other two looked up at their approach. The blond boy regarded her appraisingly, but neutrally, before breaking into a polite smile. He held out his hand for Cassandra to shake, and the blond was briefly taken aback by his firm grip. Most men shaking her hand did so delicately, as if afraid she would break if gripped too hard. This boy had no such reservations about her.

"Hi, I'm Erek. You must be Cassie?"

"We've decided to go with Cassandra to avoid confusion," Marco interrupted before Cassandra could respond. Erek just shrugged and offered up a neutral response of 'cool' before turning back to Marco and the other boy. Cassandra noticed it first, though the other caught on quickly enough. It's rather hard not to noticed slack jawed starring after all. Cassandra was about to politely introduce herself to the new boy when another Grin split Marco's face as he gave the other boy a little 'friendly nudge' forwards, and towards the waiting Cassandra. "Hey Max, why don't you say hi to our new friend?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"Based on my translation of the glyphs that we've managed to recover, we believe that this was once a scientific outpost, but later became a refugee center similar to our own alpha site," Dr. Daniel Jackson informed the group of assembled military big wigs and foreign diplomats at their third high level briefing for the week. At this point the was almost waiting for some kind of invasion or crisis or something or other just to break up the monotony.

"It seems that the sight was once exploring the use of alternative energy sources via a subspace generator before a crisis on their home world forced a mass exodus," Lieutenant Colonel Doctor Samantha Carter picked up from him before getting into the nitty gritty of the technology they'd found on the abandoned planet. She would eventually have to explain the military and political importance of their find as well, seeing as how Jack had decided that this was an excellent time to go fishing and had bailed on the meeting, taking a rather reluctant Teal'c with him. "The technology they used was similar to the Asgard beaming technology, but they somehow managed to apply it to long distance space travel without the need for a ship. The planet they were doing research on would have been ideal due to it's close proximity of two black holes on a collision course at the time of their settlement."

"Black holes?" One delegate replied nervously. "Didn't we have a rather serious issue with opening a stargate next to a black hole a few years back?"

"Yes sir," Sam answered calmly, quickly soothing the delegates worried nerves. "But this civilization died out nearly one million years ago. The Black holes have long since collided, although there is still evidence of the remnants of the accretion disk created when one of the black holes was kicked back out into open space. It's this energy, exuded by radiation from the disks, that the aliens were hoping to capitalize on."

"Their civilization apparently managed to survive on this planet for several more years after the exodus before the entire population was suddenly wiped out," Dr. Janet Frasier cut in, stopping Sam before she could launch into full on techno babble. The general shot Sam a pointed look, to which she at least had the good decency to blush and shrug apologetically as Janet continued. "They appear to be more lupine in their skeletal structure than anything else, but were definitely bipedal- they walked on two legs." Janet clarified based on the confused expression of the assembled group. "It would appear as if…"

"Dr. Carter! Dr. Carter!"

The entire board room went silent as they turned to look at the open door that lead out into the hall, propped open as it was with a garbage can to help alleviate the smell of burnt cheese that still pervaded some small corners of the level. With over a dozen high level military brass and diplomatic liaisons present, and all looking curiously towards the squeaky voice currently shouting as it ran down the hallways of a highly classified underground military installation, Sam Carter prayed to whatever deity would listen, even if they were actually an evil megalomaniacal parasitic alien snake, that the voice wasn't who she thought it was.

"Dr Carter! Dr. Carter, I think I…" A loud crash and bang echoed through the hallway as the voice collided with something, most likely knocking it over. Sam didn't feel in the least bit remorseful when she caught herself hoping that it was something really heavy and potentially painful. "I'm Okay!"

No such luck.

Six seconds later a breathless and badly flushed Jay Felger appeared in the open doorway while Sam waited patiently for the earth to open up and swallow her whole- preferably in some deep dark pit at the edge of the universe.

"Doc… _*wheeze*… _Car… _*pant*_," Jay Crooned excitedly, still leaning heavily on the door frame as he panted desperately before launching himself over to the conference table, gripping the rim of the table and relying almost completely on the flimsy wood for support as he struggled to speak between gasping for great big, deep breaths of air. "Lab… back… hiding… marines… cheese… out of coffee…"

"Jay!" Sam snapped, looking up at the still heavily breathing scientist desperately as she tried not to loose her cool. "Take ten seconds, breath, _then_ speak. In full sentences this time please."

Jay nodded furiously as Sam groaned in frustration at the over eager young research analyst and tried to avoid looking at the assembled group still at the conference table. She knew that the General would not be happy about this, and only hoped that their delegate guests would not be reporting to the President that _all _of the SGC were as incompetent and diplomatically and politically dysfunctional as one Jay Felger.

"I was in one of the, uh, the back labs hiding from the marines- I think they're still mad about that whole ray gun thing blowing up firing range three, which was totally an accident by the way!" Sam leveled him with a look and Jay gulped quietly, having the sense of mind to continue on. "So anyways, I was working in lab twenty three- you know, the one where we stick all the junk that we don't know what it does before everything gets shipped off to area fifty one?" Sam groaned and put her face in her hand. She would have rather not had the General know that her department was treating highly advanced alien technology like the stuff at a garage sale. "Well I was just sitting there trying to figure out what went wrong with the ray gun- I really think there's a problem in the power conversion between the firing mechanism and the power distributor- but anyways, that's when I saw this!"

From out of the pocket of his lab coat Jay produced a small oblong stone about the size of a miniature football, carefully nestled in a handkerchief in the palm of his hand and held as reverently and delicately as one would hold a priceless Faberge egg. The metal object had a small dot, indistinguishable from the rest of the smooth metal surface except for the occasional slow blinking of a small red dot of light that seemed to come from within the metal itself in a slow, pulsating tempo. There was a small strip of writing as well, or at least, Sam thought it was writing. The miniscule and densely packed script glowed a faint green blue and traveled the length of the stone along one side, terminating at the point of the glowing red dot. Sam instinctively moved forward to examine the stone, but carefully refrained from touching it with her bare hands as it sat safely nestled in the now perfectly still hands of the usually bumbling scientist. In the brief glow of the luminescent dot she could detect minute color variations at other points beneath the cool metal surface of the stone, undoubtedly other light or signals waiting to be activated.

"When did this start," Sam asked cautiously, still not taking her eyes from the stone. Her face was only centimeters away from the object, but she seemed completely unaware of it. Jay on the other hand, was acutely aware of her close physical proximity and struggled to keep his hands still and his voice even as he spoke.

"Uhm, about ten minutes ago," he informed her excitedly, gulping down his nerves in favor of the buzzing energy that a new scientific discovery always seemed to give him. "I've already swept it with a Geiger counter as a precaution, and while it's not dangerous, at least not as far as we know, the stone is definitely emitting some form of energy that we haven't identified yet."

"Colonel?" Carter didn't respond immediately, but Jay looked up and gulped loudly as he apparently only just realized that he'd come running into a room full of military hot shots like a little kid who'd just found a candy store. Across the big table, General George Hammond was regarding the situation more tiredly than anything else, and with one calmly raised eyebrow. Thankfully, Dr. Carter finally responded, sparring Jay the humiliation of attempting to speak with a room full of people watching him critically.

"We found it on P3X-975, which was unusual because there are not other signs of life on the planet- only a few pieces of scattered technology. Definitely nothing biological. We haven't been able to date any of it yet because we're not even sure what kind of metal we're dealing with here."

"So what precisely is that thing in your hands Dr. Felger?" the General asked with a hint of pointed exasperation. The difficulty of working with a staff primarily consistent of scientists and, even amongst the military, geniuses, is that the moment something new or shiny showed up, all attention was instantly diverted. Really, some days he was tempted to get a laser pointer and point it at the wall to see if they would follow the 'shiny new dot' like his daughters cats would. For all his other faults, Jay was one of the few scientists who was still left with enough social graces to look apologetic at his intrusion.

"Well, uh, Sir. We, ah… we don't really… know, exactly…"

"We should run more diagnostic tests now that it's been activated," Sam intruded suddenly, apparently speaking more to herself than to anyone else in the room. "Full radiation, EM, and sonic evaluations. All the reading's we got before were either completely unresponsive, so whatever it is it was probably shielded. Plus we need to figure out what activated it of course…"

"Uh, Sam?" Daniel interrupted with a polite little cough. The blond astrophysicist looked up at Daniel, who just nodded his head in the direction of the General. Looking completely unapologetic and entirely expectant, George just gave the woman a tired sigh and slight wave of the hand, sending the duo of scientist quickly retreating from the room, calling out diagnostic tests and procedures that George couldn't pretend to understand even on his best days- and he had some pretty good days too. Receiving expectant looks from Janet and Daniel, he waved them off as well and sent the archeologist and Doctor scampering after the other two, practically sprinting to catch up to them. Turning back to the assembled delegates he began passing around a stack of plain manilla envelopes marked 'Project Blue Book- Tax Returns 1997', folders marked 'Top Secret' don't stay secret very long, and looked at the assembly with a tired sigh.

"I had Dr.'s Jackson, Carter, and Frasier include a one paragraph layman's terms summary at the back of each of your briefs ahead of time," he informed them succinctly. "This sort of thing has an alarming tendency to happen at the most inconvenient times. You're all dismissed."

As the somewhat surprised men filed out of the room, George was certain he heard one or more of them commenting lightly on how relieved they were not to have to work regularly with people with IQ's above 130. Left alone in the conference room, George smiled softly. His days as a simple military General, directing ground movements in three consecutive wars had been ten times less stressful than the handful of years he'd spent with the stargate program. He chuckled. Nope- still wouldn't trade the SGC for the world. Absent minded geniuses included.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry! I know it's late, but this one was tricky for me. Every which way I tried it just came out sounding corny. Hopefully this won't be too bad. I know everyone's confused about the change and the re-draft, but some major plot stuff shifted in my head when I was doing this and I needed to get it all re-organized from the beginning. Don't worry! We'll get to the knew stuff soon enough. Oh- and ignore that random bit of text at the bottom of Ch 4. Not sure how it got in there, but it's from another part of the story- just ignore it. Now… on with the show!

**Chapter Eight**

Her aura was shinning more brightly than anything else he'd ever experienced while on earth. With other Andalites, this would not be an unusual sight, but amongst humans… even with the animorphs and their exposure to morphing technology he could only register the barest glimmers of color surrounding their forms. But her… vibrant streaks of purples and blue swirled together, occasionally highlighted by brief flashes of greens. There were the barest hints of red, hiding behind the vibrant hues of her projection. He had to concentrate, to focus on shuttering his mind to the vibrancy of the colors just to be able to see her face. He was not disappointed. She was fairly pretty by Human standards. Long dirty blond hair framed a slightly pale face splattered with barely visible freckles and a pair of vibrant blue green eyes reminiscent of colors he'd seen scattered throughout her aura. He felt Marco's hand on his back and braced himself, but not quickly enough to prevent him from stumbling a few feet forward, towards the awkwardly smiling girl. His breath caught in his throat and he actually had to remind himself to physically draw breath before he could let out his quiet, breathless greeting.

"Hi." He could have smacked himself for the originality of his address if he'd had the presence of mind to do anything but stare. The girl before him didn't seem to have minded however, as she just smiled shyly and returned the greeting.

"Hi, I'm Cassandra. Rachel's friend. You must be Max?" He was standing so close that she could smell the nacho cheese and hot sauce on his breath. It wasn't a bad smell, just not what she had expected. She found herself absently wondering what pizza with nacho cheese would taste like. He was cute, kind of goofy looking and with a very odd taste in clothes, but definitely cute. He nodded eagerly at her assumption, and she doubted very much if he would have been capable of forming words at that exact moment. "Did you guys figure out what's wrong with the car?"

He kept starring for a moment, still slightly open mouthed, before finally shaking himself violently and turning quickly back towards the car, but not quickly enough to hide the faint blush spreading across his cheeks. "Yes. We have located the malfunction and repaired the damage. A build up of calcium carbonate has adversely affected the electrical component, draining the energy stored when it attempted to engage and preventing the engine from turning over."

Max said all of this very quickly and very matter-of-factly. A quick look around from Marco determined that no one else had understood the blue guy either, except for maybe his android buddy, though he couldn't really see Cassandra's expression from his current angle. So his less than eloquent 'Huh?' seemed to sum up the general mood of the group well enough. To everyone's surprise and great relief it was Cassandra who filled in the blanks rather than either of the two resident geniuses.

"Corrosion built up and made the battery and made it short out so the car wouldn't start," Cassandra translated automatically. Growing up with the surrogate family she had, she was used to translating geek. She was still eyeing her car vaguely, as if waiting for the cursed contraption to just up and die on her. "Is it running now?"

"Ah, yes," Max informed her simply, coming to stand next to her but keeping his eyes on the hood of the car as he scrutinized the vehicle. "We used a sucrose and carboxylic acid solution that we had readily at hand to remove the corrosion. Though the battery should probably be replaced at some point in the future."

Cassie started and stared at the boy next to her with an incredulously raised eyebrow. "Carbox… You used soda?"

"Coca Cola to be precise," Max corrected absently, still not quite meeting her eyes. He blush had returned, but at least this time he was smiling. "It was the highest concentration we had at hand."

Cassandra just shook her head, looking only vaguely perturbed. "Remind me to lay off the soda next time…"

"So are we good to go?" Jake asked suddenly from behind them. Both teens jumped slightly, having forgotten that there was anyone else around, and turned to face the group. Cassie was glaring at her boyfriend and nudged him softly with her elbow in reproval, but Jake didn't even seen to noticed as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"What's the rush man?" Marco asked calmly from his position now sprawled across the hood of Jake's mini van, soaking up the sun, arms folded under his head and clearly very comfortable.

"We need to get to Tech World before it closes," Jake reminded everyone subtly. Or, at least he'd hoped it was subtle. Before Marco could remind their designated leader that Tech World, as a point of fact, didn't close until midnight, over eight hours from now, Cassandra had jumped into the conversation with an alarming amount of zeal.

"Oh my God, you guys are going to Tech World? My Aunt Sam has been drooling over that place from afar for years. I've been meaning to go for ages! How cool is it, really?"

"Why don't you just come with us," Cassie suggested, smiling at her new friends enthusiasm. She ignored Jake's prod and pointed look as Rachel spoke.

"Yeah, besides, I don't know half of what goes on there. You could be our geek to girl translator!" The girls all giggled and, before any of the boys could figure out just what had happened or really object, they had all piled into Cassandra's car and were heading out of the parking lot under Rachel and Cassie's direction. The four remaining boys looked at each other with no small amount of confusion.

"Anyone know what just happened?" Marco asked suddenly.

'_Yeah, you got ditched.' _Four heads turned up to see a familiar red tailed hawk sitting in the branches of the tree just off to the side of the minivan. _'We need to talk.'_

"Oh no, you're not breaking up with us are you?" Marco snickered, now sitting propped up on the hood and looking at the bird with a familiar glint of amusement in his eyes.

"Marco," Jake's irritated tone did nothing repress his friends growing grin, so he settled for ignoring the other boy as they all turned back to face the bird. "What's up?"

The dead carcass of a familiar slimy little creature plopped down onto the hood of the car just a few inches away from Marco's hand, making the boy scrambled of the hood and away from the dead little thing.

'_That came out of the new girls faucet yesterday afternoon,' _Tobias informed them all gravely. _'I think it was probably aiming for the showers and got redirected in all the plumbing when she turned on the water. She screamed and chucked it out her window before I could really see what was going on.'_

"Were there any others?" Jake asked, suddenly so serious that not even Marco was willing to crack the thick tension that had settled around them all.

'_Not that I saw, but I didn't have a clear view the whole time,' _Tobias informed them quietly. No one asked why he was spying on the new girl to begin with as yesterday's events played out in their minds again.

"Anything that would lead you to believe otherwise?" Ax stiffened off to the side as Jake voiced the concern that everyone else was afraid to, thinking of their two friend who had just driven off with the possibly infected girl completely unawares.

'_Not unless you count weird eating habits and bad taste in television as suspicious,' _Tobias reported tiredly. _'She was actually watching Wormhole X-Treme from the sounds of it.'_

"How weird is weird?" Jake asked seriously, as if revealing the secrets of the girls eating habits would suddenly reveal her status as a controller.

'_Left over pizza with ranch and hot sauce.' _Three out of five blanched at the thought. Ax privately though the proposed food sounded intriguing and Erek, as he didn't exactly need to eat, didn't really have much of an opinion on the matter.

"Well, I guess that answers the question of who the Yeerks are targeting," Marco announced with a wry sigh.

"Yeah, but why? I mean, she's just some girl right?" Jake questioned, confusion coloring his tone and putting tension into his shoulders. He hated being in the dark.

"We should go meet up with the girls," Ax reminded firmly. And if his voice was unusually tense, none of the others noticed it. Four boys and a bird were heading towards the mini van when Marco spoke again.

"This is so weird… who watches wormhole extreme anymore? That show is like totally lame!"


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"So you're both from around here?" Cassandra asked as the three girls rolled on down the highway at a relatively sedate pace, Rachel sitting up front and Cassie leaning through from the middle seat in the back so that they could all talk to one another easily.

"Born and raised," Rachel responded absently as she fiddled with the radio.

"All of us are… or at least, most of us," Cassie filled in. "Ax is a foreign exchange student, we all just met him about six years ago. Erek is from… well, I don't really know where Erek is from exactly. And Tobias only moved into town about a year before that. Oh! But you haven't met him yet have you?"

Cassandra scrolled through the list of people she'd met in the last day before shaking her head reluctantly. "No, I don't think so. What does he look like?"

"Tall, brown hair, green eyes, really cute…"

"Hey! Keep your eyes to yourself missy!" Rachel interrupted, briefly pausing in her search for the perfect song to glare at her friend. Cassie just laughed and shook her head before turning back to Cassandra.

"Rachel and Tobias have this whole 'Unrequited lovers' thing going on. Have for years now."

"Well, and don't mind me if this is a silly question, but- why exactly don't you just ask the boy out?"

"It's… it's complicated," Rachel finished lamely, blushing faintly as she turned her frustrated glare back to the radio to avoid looking at the other two girls as she continued to flip through the stations. It was more than just complicated. Even if she could actually say how she felt, how was she supposed to have a relationship with a guy who spent ninety nine percent of his time covered in feathers?

"So what about you? You from around here?" Cassie asked, politely redirecting the conversation away from her friends less than impressive love life.

"Nah, my mom works at the military base in Colorad Springs- she's a doctor at the Air Force base there. I just came up here for the gymnastics program."

"And your mom just let you come all this way by yourself? What about school?" Cassie asked, trying to hide her surprise. She didn't want to come off as rude but…

"I finished a year early- I'm going to Bunker Hill Liberal Arts now. My mom kind of freaked when I told her, but my Uncle Jack convinced her to let me go. He's a pretty laid back kind of guy- said it would do me some good to step out into the world a little bit. Have you guys started looking at college's yet?"

"Nope," Rachel replied simply. She was still flicking through radio channels, though more slowly now, and it was slowly beginning to grate on the other girls nerves. "I mean, my mom wants me to go in for nursing. But I've just never really seen myself as the college girl type. Though there's a few military academies that I thought looked kind of interesting."

"I used to have it all planned out. Go to UCSD, major in zoology and veterinary sciences. Go on to find graduate work at the San Diego Zoo. And then do post grad with a conservation program somewhere," Cassie listed somewhat dreamily.

"So what's wrong with that? Sound like a pretty good plan to me," Cassandra commented. It did sound like a good plan, and like something Cassie really wanted to do. Why would she just give up on that? But Cassie just shrugged.

"I don't know. Life just kind of… got in the way I guess. I'm not even sure if I'll go to a Junior college now. I've just got a lot of other stuff on my plate at the moment."

Cassandra was about to ask her more about it when Rachel squealed excitedly at the song currently coming through the radio and blasted the volume. The latest Britney Spears hit came blaring through the radio but Cassandra couldn't help but smile, at the other girls reaction if nothing else.

"Oh my god, I LOVE THIS SONG! Bah dum dum AND I'M STRONGER! THAN YESTERDAY! NOW IS NOTHING BUT IN MY WA-AY-AY!" It didn't take long before all three girls were singing along with the lyrics, all very badly off key and out of pitch, but still having a blast regardless.

_SnakesorSlugs-SnakesorSlugs-SnakesorSlugs-SnakesorSlugs-SnakesorSlugs-SnakesorSlugs_

By the time the boys had made it to the Tech World parking lot, they found the three girls sitting on top of Cassandra's car, radio blaring and singing along, very badly in Jake's opinion, though he would never actually say it, to what sounded like an Avril Lavine song. Unfortunately, Macro didn't seem to have as much tact as he did.

"Hey! Who's torturing a goat? Ow!" the shorter boy quickly ducked and retreated back behind the minivan as he was suddenly pelted with small rocks and bits of trash from the parking lot. "Uncle! Uncle!" Macro had raised up a small bit of paper as an imitation white flag, only to have it knocked out of his hand as a particularly well aimed rock hit him rather hard in the middle of the wrist. A painful yelp was heard from the boy, but the rocks tapered off as the girls ran out of ammunition. By the time Marco emerged from behind the van, nursing his still painful wrist with a wounded expression, Cassie and Rachel were walking over towards the group as Cassandra leaned in her car door to shut off it off and pull out her keys.

Tobias, now feather free, was the last out of the mini van. At a subtle nod from Jake he made his way towards the new girl, Ax trailing along quickly behind him when he saw where the other boy was going. At the duo's sudden departure and Jake's unnecessarily serious expression, both girls raised their eyebrows in silent questioning. But Jake waited for the two to come within whispering range, double checking that Tobias and Ax had their extra wheel suitably distracted, before speaking.

"Tobias saw a Yeerk come through Cassandra's plumbing. We're not sure if any more got through, but it's definitely her their targeting," Jake announced quickly, his voice low and calm as he swiftly entered into leader mode, conveying information as quickly as possible with a limited amount of conjecture or supposition. There was a moment of stunned silence from the girls suggesting that perhaps he should have eased into this a tad more.

"Aw, damn. So much for Ax's love life. Now how am I supposed to get him out of the house on weekends?"

"Could you be serious for one moment in your life?" Jake snapped sharply, glaring at his best friend with unrestrained frustration and annoyance. Marco just looked dramatically taken aback and affronted.

"Dude, I am being serious! I haven't been able to get that guy out of the house for more than twenty minutes since he moved in! A man needs his alone time you know."

"Marco! Just…!"

"Why Cassandra?" Cassie interrupted quickly, partially as she was shaken from her temporary daze, but mostly as a part of a now subconscious response to head off the more and more frequent confrontations between the two boys.

"We were hoping you would know," Erek pointed out neutrally, his unnatural calm a reminder of his less than human origins. "You did just spend nearly twenty minutes in a car with her."

Rachel shrugged, raking her mind desperately for any potential clues as to why the Yeerks would be targeting an eighteen year old girl from Colorado Springs… "NORAD!"

"What?" The rest of the group was looking at Rachel in mild confusion at her sudden exclamation. A moment later Cassie's eyes widened in realization.

"Where her mom…?"

"Yeah. That's got to be it, right?" The two girls were locked into each other as the boys looked on in helpless confusion.

"Anyone care to fill us in here?" Marco asked, breaking into the silent communication between the girls. Jake would have berated him for his attitude, but stowed his comments away for now as Rachel began to fill in the blanks.

"Her mom works at an air force base in Colorado Springs, she's a doctor or something," Rachel said quickly, raising an eyebrow at the blank looks she was receiving. "Colorado Springs? Air Force?… Come on guys! Colorado Springs is the home of NORAD!"

"Which is…?" Jake trailed off uncertainly.

"North American Aerospace Defense Command. It's basically the white house for all military Aerospace operations. Air Force. Land to Air missiles. Satellite Arrays. If the Yeerks got a foothold there they could land a mother ship right in the middle of town and we'd never know until they were right on top of us." Everyone by now had turned to look at Marco in mild surprise and no small amount of suspicion. "What? They had a special on it on the History Channel. What else was I supposed to do at two am?"

"Uhm, sleep?" Rachel suggested seriously. Marco just waved her off, as if sleeping at night instead of taking four hours naps all day was a ludicrous suggestion.

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"Hello Cassandra!" Cassandra started a little bit at Max's sudden appearance only a foot away from her as he came to a sudden stop. He was smiling happily, lips pursed and an energetic sparkle in his eyes and Cassandra couldn't help but laugh a little at his enthusiasm.

"Hello again Max. Enjoy your ride?"

"It was pleasant. And yourself?"

"Good. It was good." Cassandra looked at the still beaming teen awkwardly for a moment, a faint blush creeping up her cheeks under his intense scrutiny, when another teen ambled up to the two of them and, to Cassandra's great relief as an uncomfortable silence had begun to settle between herself and Max, introduced himself.

"Hi. I'm Tobias, you must be Cassandra," He stuck out his hand and she shook it readily. Longish brown hair, green eyes, cute- yep. He definitely fit Cassie's description. She could see why Rachel had developed a crush on the boy. Fortunately she was broken out from that line of thinking before her thoughts could progress any further. "So, what do you think of Tech World so far? The girls said you were really excited to see it."

Ok, so he was lying. But what was he supposed to say? 'Yeah, I was sitting in a tree listening in on your conversation in the parking lot when you were talking before. What? Oh, why couldn't you see me? Because I was shape shifted into a red tailed hawk at the time. Yeah, I tend to do that' - Yeah, right. That would go over well…

"To be honest? I was expecting something a bit more… impressive," Cassandra's answer trailed off as her eyes scanned the small parking lot and the buildings before them. Tobias had to agree. Their small strip of parking lot stood before what looked like a warehouse connected to one of those rented storage space places. Off on the far side of the building was a small parking , whose three levels rose up to be level with the top of the warehouse. The other side was bordered with an older style, two story brick building that looked as though it had apparently once been a firehouse. The view was less than impressive, but that was part of what had kept Tech World as an underground secret for so many years. People passing by would see only a crumbling side road from the highway, and even if you knew what you were looking for, most people assumed they had taken a wrong turn somewhere when they took in the view of the decrepit building. The only reason the animorphs even knew about this was because Erek had filled them in. So Tobias just smirked and turned back to the vaguely disappointed looking blond.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to judge a book by it's cover?"

"But Tobias, how would one know of the content of a literary text if they did not examine it's coverings?" Max asked with an earnest confusion that nearly sent Cassandra into a fit of hysterical laughter. She managed to hold herself back, but only just barely.

"It's a colloquialism. It means not to judge on first appearances alone," Cassandra explained diligently. Max nodded in quiet acceptance of her explanation, grasping the concept more thoroughly now. Cassandra was very good at explaining things to him simply and honestly. He had begun to wish that she would remain in their company more permanently when a blush crept into his cheeks at his line of thought. Curse his human physiological reactions to mental stimuli…

"Hey! You guys ready to go in?" Marco called across the parking lot as the other half of the group made their way over. Cassandra nodded but still looked at the building dubiously as the group began approaching a pair of heavy steel doors.

Knocking once, a slot opened in one of the doors and a pair of judgmental grey eyes appeared through the slot. "Yeah?"

"Eight to Enter. Here for the wine tasting?" Before Cassandra even had time to be confused the heavy metal door had swung open and they all stepped inside. Another half a second later and Cassandra's jaw hit the floor. Tobias had been right. First impressions? Definitely not a good judge for this place…

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Long enough for ya? ;) More chapters coming soon! I'm on a roll, baby!


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

Tables and tents stretched out half the length of a football field before her and off to either side. Some vendors had only fold out tables strewn with gizmo's and gadgets. Others kept their wares in cardboard boxes or crude shelves. The more permanent looking booths had tents, and a few of them had even constructed walls and store fronts, creating the illusion of a sprawling miniature suburb interspersed with an odd sort of roving gypsy camp, with no single shop bigger than maybe ten or twenty feet on any given side. The backs of container crates stacked up on top of each other, the large metal containers she'd seen on cargo ships, formed a wall of sorts off to the right, with single stack of missing containers forming the only gap in the extensive wall. To the far left she could see the simple concrete wall stretch off into the distance. Straight ahead though was a main path cutting clear through to the back of the building, nearly twenty feet wide. Shops and booth's on either side of the main thorough fair were bustling with traffic. About halfway between the entrance they had just stepped through and the concrete wall on the far side was a giant plexi-glass square, maybe only four feet on either side, but stretching all the way up to the roof. She could see a thin platform, held in place by apparently nothing more than the four metal posts surrounding the corners of the shaft, moving slowly but steadily down from the roof towards the floor. The platform was studded with a cluster of dark bodies, faces obscured by the warping of the plexi-glass, as they rode the shaft calmly towards the centers floor. In a wide swatch of cleared space by the base of the make shift elevator stood a collection of benches and what appeared to be water fountains from what Cassandra could make out. Many of the tents and tables lining the circle appeared to have smoke rising from them, but the smell of cooking food was most definitely unmistakable from any distance.

"Well?" Cassandra turned back to see Tobias looking at her with a bemusedly expectant little smirk and a single raised eyebrow. "Meeting your expectations yet?"

Cassandra was rather embarrassed to admit that she floundered for more than a moment, her mouth opening and closing expectantly as she searched for the words. Fortunately, Marco found them for her.

"Oh my God… the geeks have inherited the earth!"

"Shut up Marco," Jake grumbled, but he was mostly ignored.

"So where do we start?" Cassie asked from Jake's side, still clinging loosely to his arm. Right… and there was _nothing_ going on between them.

"Well Marco and I needed to get some IR goggles for, uh, paintball," Tobias stumbled out. Marco looked at him curiously and was about to open his mouth to question it when he caught Tobias gesturing towards Cassandra subtly.

"Uh, yeah. Paintball. I think that stuff's in section ten, right?"

"Section ten is LARP gear, Nine is astronomy, Eight is psychiatry, Seven is robotics…" Max began rattling off, still having not taken his eyes from Cassandra as she surveyed the markets before them with a wide eyed curiosity. There was something else in her expression as well, perhaps a sense of painful familiarity? But that did not make sense, earth did not have many open markets such as these, at least not in this part of the world. And he saw no reason for such a market to recall a feeling of pain. He would have to question Prince Jake about such things later and re-evaluate his ability to comprehend human facial expressions as emotional representations.

"Yeah, we get it Max," Rachel groaned, cutting the curly haired boy off.

"Well, I've got to go meet up with some friends of mine. They were supposed to have the situation on a new gaming system," Erek aliped in with a shrug. Jake nodded subtly at Erek's quick glance before speaking up himself.

"I'm gonna go with Erek. I've been meaning to find out about this game myself. Cassie? You want to come with us?"

"Yeah, sure," Cassie responded ambivalently. Jake seemed to have put a bit too much weight on his words, trying to make them sound like a command, but Cassie didn't even seem to notice.

"What were you going to do Max?" Cassandra's question was simple and innocent enough, but it still seemed to manage to make the exchange student blush.

"I, uh, intended to confer with several associates in the astronomy and software programming departments. Would you, uh, I mean… would you care to… I do not intend to imply… I would be open to other…"

"I'd love to go with you! I've actually been meaning to take a look at some new encryption software myself. Does the astronomy department have anything looking in to alien life? I know most people think it's more science fiction than anything else, but I do believe that it would be incredibly arrogant to assume that we were the only intelligent life forms in existnace. What do you think?"

"I readily concur," Max nodded eagerly, not smiling but looking at the girl before him in a mixture of shock and agreement. The other were still trying to process what she'd just said- she'd apparently not taken a breath throughout the whole thing. "I do not believe there is an alien life interest in the astronomy department, as that is mostly located in section five. They like to refer to it as Area 5.1 as a method of pop culture reference, although I do believe there is some level of cross over in the departments. We could, however, visit all three. It would not be disagreeable."

"Great! Oh, and can we take a look at that center square? It looks so beautiful…" Cassandra was still speaking to Ax, she had somehow managed to loop her arm around his without him jumping back, and the two had begun strolling off down the main street, Cassie pointing excitedly at things she saw, and Max looking only at Cassandra and little else. The remaining animorphs turned to look at each other with raised eyebrows while the resident android just shrugged. Tobias turned to Rachel expectantly.

"Ready to go?" Tobias asked simply, holding out a had towards the short tempered blond. Marco, who was standing just behind the other boy, interlaced his fingers under his chin and began making fluttering his eyelashes and making kissy face. Rachel glared, a blush rising quickly to her cheeks, and slammed the boy hard with her shoulder as she strode past, knocking Marco to his ass, but also brushing past Tobias's extended hand in the process. Tobias looked after her for a moment, his brow furrowed, before helping Marco to his feat and following after her.

"Well, they're doomed," Cassie announced, looking after her friends in something close to exasperation. She looked back to Jake for a comment, but the boys face was stony and blank as they turned and began trekking off towards the metal container crates lining the one side of the warehouse, Erek leading the way as Cassie and Jake traveled just behind him, arm in arm. "I mean, Rachel just can't stop herself from getting in her own way, and Tobias is too softhearted to knock enough sense into her for her to see it. He'll never get through that thick shell of hers at this rate. Maybe we should get Rachel an intervention. Like a 'stop sabotaging your only romantic interest' intervention? Do you think they even do those?"

"You shouldn't have invited her." The change in topic threw Cassie for a bit, and Jake's still stony expression didn't help any as he kept his gaze straight ahead even as she tried to meet his eyes. She tried to slow him down a little bit, so that she could look him in the eye, but Jake just pressed on, almost dragging Cassie to the ground as their arms were still intertwined.

"Invited who?"

"Cassandra. It was risky and foolish and you shouldn't have done it." He was serious. Cassie was starring at him, dumbfounded, but he was being completely serious. His jaw was set and clenching so hard that she worried for the well being of his teeth- he was going to grind them all away someday if he kept at it like this. She could see a muscle twitching in his jaw as they walked.

"Why not? It's not as if she's in any danger than she already was with the Yeerks tailing her. And besides, I like hanging out with her. It's fun to have another girl in the group. And Rachel and I aren't always on the same wavelength…"

"It was irresponsible." Jake cut her off again. That was really starting to annoy her. So were his short and unnecessarily terse sentences. "She could find out something that she shouldn't, or draw the Yeerks attention to us. She's a target. If they want her that bad they'll try to go through us to get herand then everything we've worked for would be gone. This is a war Cassie, not a social event. You shouldn't have invited her."

This time, when Cassie stopped, Jake was forced to stop with her. He didn't have much choice as Cassie had positioned herself directly in front of him, disentangling their arms. Not stopping would have meant colliding with her. Although, the glare she was sending his way certainly helped in his decision a little.

"You're right Jake. This is a war," well, this wasn't the verbal berating that Jake had expected. He opened his mouth to accept what he assumed was her apology when Cassie cut him off and continued. "But this is also our lives. It has been for the last seven years and I refuse to let this war stop me from living my life. I like Cassandra. She's a nice person and I think we could be really good friends. Is she in danger? Yes? Does that mean that I should abandon her because of the risk to myself?" Cassie didn't look mad any more. She didn't look pissed, or angry, or indignant. Just tired. Tired, and a little disappointed. "Cassandra is my friend now Jake. She's Rachel's friend. We can't abandon her just to save our own skins. If we give that part of ourselves up, if we let this war dictate who we are… then we might as well just let the Yeerks win. Because that's not a world I particularly want to live in."

Cassie stormed off, following after Erek and leaving Jake standing in her wake. He stared after her for a long moment before reluctantly following her footsteps. She just didn't understand what was at risk here. None of them did.

"Dude! Check out those things! This is wicked!" Marco was already sprinting towards the table that held multiple sets of infra red and night vision goggles right next to the booth that was apparently selling ninja costumes and fully body padding. Tobias hung a few yards back, not wanting to get between an over excited Marco and some shiny new toys. Rachel was wandering a few feet behind him, arms wrapped around her torso and just generally moping. Looking back to Marco, he hazard a guess that his friend wasn't going to miss his presence any time soon and wandered over to where Rachel was sulking.

"Hey."

Rachel looked up, but quickly averted her gaze back to the floor. "Hey."

"You okay?" he wasn't usually this straight forward, but he was getting tired of constantly being pushed away.

"I'm fine."

"You're lying."

Rachel's eyes shot to his and Tobias mentally kicked himself. He knew he was pushing her too fast, but he just couldn't take this anymore. He couldn't stand to watch her self destruct like this, and he couldn't stand being powerless to stop it. Marco let out a loud hoot as he discovered another booth that sold paintball guns and gear next to the goggles booth, temporarily drawing both their gazes. When Tobias turned back to Rachel though, she was still eyeing Marco in irritation, and even a little anger.

"He's such an idiot. He's going to get us all killed one day," Rachel spat out angrily. Tobias responded calmly to her anger, an immovable ocean to a raging volcano.

"We're shopping. Not at war."

"He's reckless, no matter where we are. It's going to come back to bite us all one day," Rachel argued, still glaring at Marco and not meeting Tobias's gaze. He frowned, lines wrinkling his forehead, green eyes furrowed, and took her hand. Her blue eyes shot to his green ones, but Tobias did not release his grip on her hand.

"What is wrong with you?"

"What? Nothing is wrong with me!" Her voice was angry and defensive as she tried to pull her hand out of Tobias's grip. But he was tired of letting giving up and letting her push him away.

"Yes there is. You and Jake. It's been building for a long time now. You're angry all the time, defensive, you snap at people for no reason…"

"There is always a reason to snap at Marco!" Rachel snapped, unwittingly proving Tobias's point. His expression went from intense to just disappointed. He knew she didn't know about the nights that he, Marco and Ax would stay up late watching old movies when they came out on DVD together. Neither Ax nor Tobias could sit through a feature length film without risk, and rarely went out. Shortly after Marco's father had disappeared and Ax had moved in, he had begun surprising the two of them with movies and Pizza, sometimes staying up until nearly two am. Neither of them had questioned it, figuring that Marco needed this probably more than they did, and none of them talked about it. But the movies were always there. And on stormy nights, the back door was always left unlocked, just in case Tobias wanted a warm place to stay. Rachel didn't know all of this, but Tobias did.

"You need to take a break," Rachel looked like she wanted to slap him, but Tobias still had a hold of her hand. "You're wearing out, and you're going to self destruct soon if you don't calm down, and you can't do it on your own. But I can't hang around and watch you kill yourself if you're not even going to try to stop it. So whenever you're ready, I'll be waiting." Tobias let go of her hand and began walking over to the booth Marco was standing at. He stopped halfway and looked over his shoulder, not surprised to find that Rachel hadn't moved, standing frozen in the same place he'd left her. "And you should give Marco a break. He's dealing with things in the only way he knows how, but at least he isn't taking anyone else down with him."


	11. Chapter 11

First off- I am soo, soooo, sooooooo sorry! In addition to school and my two jobs I somehow ended up becoming vice president of my schools Rotaract club (it's a volunteer service organization) and that in turn led to an internship (which I need to apply so graduate school) so… yeah. I've been living off of sugar and five hour energy drinks for a while now- which is not exactly conducive to the creative thought process… at least not if you want to produce anything of any quality. So… here we go…

**Chapter Eleven**

He was cute. And kind of funny, even when he didn't mean to be. But most importantly, his entire attention was focused undividedly on her, and her alone. It made her more than a little uncomfortable, to have a boy starring so blatantly at her, but she had to admit, if only to herself, that she kind of like it too. No one had ever really made her feel special outside of her family, though, to be fair, they were the only ones who knew just how 'special' she really was. Damien had given her this kind of attention, back in high school, but it had been fleeting and temperamental at best. And now, there was a boy walking at her side, starring at her openly like she was a goddess descended from the heavens, hardly even sparing a glance for the incredible display and variety of trinkets and technologies around them.

They'd wandered from department to department, just taking it all in, before finally finding their way towards the central courtyard. The plexi glass shaft of the elevator lowered onto a raised stone circle standing in the middle of a shallow pool. Stepping stones allowed those carried by the shaft to cross the water in almost any direction, small water features and color changing lights interspersing the paths when they grew wide enough apart. Vendors selling every kind of geek chic cuisine surrounded the area and it's cobblestone floor, a vast different from the sprawling cement underfoot over the rest of the warehouse. Everything from strawberry pockey, to chilli cheese fries, to custom coffee drinks was available, including a few stands that catered to surprisingly more upscale tastes. Martius, which was apparently another name for mars, sold vegan, kosher kebabs set on paper flutes of rice or barley. The smells coming from the stand had been impossible to resist, and so, after fifteen minutes of argueing with Max over proper American culturalisms in regards to monetary exchanges for food in mixed gender arrangements, the two of them were walking away happily with a kebab each. Cassandra had gone with the vegetable and gouda route, apparently called the Apollo 3, while Max had taken a more… unusual route. Duck, eggplant, zucchini, mushroom, and something that she had been assured was once a vegetable of some kind- but he seemed to be enjoying it well enough.

They were now wandering back and forth between the narrow isles of the stalls, Max devouring his double helping and Cassandra simply drifting off. She hadn't been to a bazaar_ this_ big since she was six and her parents had taken her to a larger village to trade for supplies for the winter from their fall harvest. She hadn't been to one at all since leaving Hanka, well, at least not if you didn't count the mall, and she certainly didn't. Daniel used to always tell her that he'd take her to one of the open air markets in Cairo one of these days, but it had yet to happen, and so she'd simply stopped asking. Her mother had likewise promised to take her to the 'Flea Market', which was apparently similar in concept if not in execution, but something had always seemed to come up at the last minute. And now she was here. The people were different, the sights were different, the sounds were different, hell- even the smells were different! But there was still that unmistakable sense of bustling busy people that made a market like this such a unique experience, and all she wanted to do was just breath it in for as long as she could.

"Can I help you miss?" a man from a stall she'd been eyeing stepped forward when he saw her interest. From the looks of it he was selling complex algorithmic coding software, the only thing advanced enough to be able to use in language translations if you knew how to finangle it.

"What grade encryption software is this?" Cassie asked, her interest peaked.

"You have a fine eye, miss. This is the new T*B3 series, mostly used for geographical profiles, but easily adaptable to a variety of other purposes… I presume you have some experience in computer programming?" The man said hesitantly. She could understand his position, women programmers were rare, and the proportion of boys to girls in this place meant that a such a person would be an exceptionally rare find indeed.

"I'm literate and I can write some- it's crude but it'll get the job done."

"Ah, well then, if that is the case then I can happily adapt the software to your more specific purposes free of charge, if you would like to step into the back?"

Cassandra was about to politely decline, she felt a small headache coming on, when she felt a firm grip wrap onto her wrist and begin to pull her bodily from the booth. Twisting in her attackers grip she turned, the hand that had just gripped her now twisted tightly in her grasp, fully intending on snapping this persons bony wrist, until she saw Max kneeling painfully on the ground in front of her and instantly released him.

"Max? What the hell? Don't you know better than to grab someone like that?"

"I was unaware that such an action would result in the near separation of my radius from the scaphoid bone." Cassandra flushed slightly as Max got to his knees, and pulled his arm closer to her, trying to ignore the flinch that this action triggered as she inspected the damage. "It's nothing worse than Indian burn," Cassandra dismissed quickly, trying to ignore the flush of embarrassment coloring her cheeks as she pulled Max further away from the booth where the vendor was still watching them eerily. Max, for his part, was still inspecting the damage to his wrist, and didn't seem to have registered anything unusual as Cassandra crossed her arms and began tapping her foot impatiently. "You want to tell me what that was all about? I know you're a little out of the loop when it comes to social norms, but seriously- dragging a girl from a store by the arm is a little beyond simple ignorance, don't you think?"

"You should not be speaking with them."

Max's simple statement through her for a little bit of a loop, and when it was clear that no further explanation was forthcoming, she began to get annoyed. "Excuse me?"

"You should not be speaking with them." That was it. Just a simple repetition of the previous statement, no elaboration, no clarification, and now Cassandra was starting to get aggravated.

"Who exactly are _they_? And why shouldn't I be talking to them?"

"It is not safe. They are not safe to be around, not unattended." Cassandra glanced back at the man minding his stall and, for the first time since this whole confusing little episode had started, she noted the man's naturally tanned complexion and Middle Eastern appearance. Now there was no fighting it. Cassandra saw red, and as she swung her hand it was clear - she was_ pissed_.

The palm of Cassandra's hand made contact with Max's cheek with an almighty crack that made everyone in a ten foot radius freeze in place. The boy was knocked to the ground before he'd even known what had happened, one hand gingerly pressed to the undoubtedly painful and rapidly reddening hand print marring his face. Cassandra stood over him, drawing deep, controlled breaths and practically shaking with rage. Her voice was completely calm, but cold as ice and cut through the air between them like no blade could.

"You can just stay the hell away from me. You and your bigoted little min can just screw off because if I ever hear you talking like that again, that slap will be the least of your worries. My entire family isn't off fighting a war just so that you can pick at petty difference and generate more hatred back at home, do you understand me?" Max didn't understand, not in the slightest, but he had the presence of mind and a strong enough survival instinct to nod anyways, one had still clutching his painfully stinging cheek. Cassandra stormed off down towards the main entrance, and Max was still so confused trying to figure out what had just happened, that he didn't notice that the man who had still been watching them up to this point, had left his stall unattended.

More to come soon- I promise ;)


	12. Chapter 12

I really was intending on updating right away, but my tonsils had other plans. Did you know that you have to pratically die before they'll just cut those things out already? I had a 103 degree fever for nearly five days and they still wouldn't put me out of my misery! I'm moving to Sweden... Anyways, enough about my evil tonsils and on with the story!

**Chapter Twelve**

The container crates are stacked three high, about twenty feet away from the concrete wall, creating a seperate alley way largely hidden from view from the rest of the concrete bazaar. People hustled in and out of the crates, up ladders and make shift pulley system elevators to those stacked above, often crossing rope bridge expanses in the process. Some crates stood wide open to the bustling crowds, who were somewhat rougher and somehow darker than the general cliental on the other side of the containers. Other crates had only single person doorways that either stood open to the crowds or barred with the exception of small slotted windows where a person would knock for entrance.

Cassie was striding some ways ahead of Jake as he skulked around behind her. If anyone had asked her, or any of her friends really, they would have said that she was the caretaker or the group. And most days, she would wear her mother hen badge proudly. Right now however, she was simply too pissed off and quite frankly, just too damn tired of picking up after everyone else to give a damn. Let him sulk for a little while off in his own little corner. When he was ready to grow up and act like a big boy he could catch up with the rest of them. She could see Erek, or more accurately she could see his brightly colored hawaiian shirt, just a few feet ahead of her and quickened her pace to catch up with him, looping her arms through his as she did so. Erek looked at her for a moment, before giving her a small, supportive smile. While Erek usually chose to stay out of the human drama that enveloped their little group, he could be a very supportive listener when he wanted to be.

When they came to what looked like a stolen park bench attached to some rigging, Cassie reluctantly followed Erek's example in taking a seat, only doing so in the end to avoid having Jake see her hesitation as he rounded the corner behind them. It was a tense ride up, as Jake somehow ended up sitting in the middle, and the fact that the bench swayed slightly in a nonexistant breeze and with every slight shift in their weight certainly didn't help. Twenty feet later, however, they were siddled up to a breezeway suspended from the ceiling and a wood pallet floor was slid beneath their feet by the elevator attendants to help them disembark. Jake quickly slid off and stepped to the side, rocking the bench as he did so. Cassie glared at him tiredly before Erek offered her a hand in getting off the now rocking bench.

There were far fewer people up here. Probably due to the fact that the only walk ways were suspended metal bridges that, although they were solid, still wobbled a bit when you walked on them. Standing looped arm in arm with Erek again, they made their way down the gang planks, across the slotted opening where they could see the rest of the convention grounds, to a single closed door on the other side. Erek knocked lightly once and a metal slot opened. Instead of a pair of eyes looking back however, a metal block with a single round hole in the front appeared. Erek stuck his finger in and, for one extremely alarming moment, flickered slightly before the block receeded back into the room and the door swung open. Gesturing them both in, the three ducked quickly into the container before the door swung closed behind them on neumatic actuators.

Whatever Cassie had been expecting, this was not it. Cabernet shag carpeting covered the floors, and beautiful, antique, black wrought iron chandelers let off a soft golden glow, their wires tucked expertly along the grooves of the painted metal ceiling to disguise them from view. The metal walls had been covered over by drywall and painted a pleasant creme color. Old English paintings hung from the walls, decorating the bare areas between high backed antique leather chairs and tall bookcases. Metal supports painted a dusty brick red seperated the room before them from a room exactly like it to their right. Cassie could see the difference in the pattern of the ceiling where one container had once ended and another began. The result was a twenty by twenty foot room divided only by those two metal posts. The only difference was that the far wall of the other container sported wood paneling and a wet bar. A few people were scattered throughout the room, some sitting, playing chess, some standing over by the bar. They all looked like they would have been very much at home in a book store or a country club and none of them would have stood out from the crowd, though Cassie thought she may have recognized a few of them from the few times they had come into contact with other Chee. None of them gave the newcomers a second glance however as Erek, in his bold shirt so badly out of place in their new setting, led the way to the back of the room, where he nodded once to the badly cliched bar back in a black vest and bow tie drying glasses, before pushing on one side of a wood panel. For a moment Cassie wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish before that panel too swung open. The room beyond it was definately more what she had been expecting. White laminant floors paired with white walls, white ceilings, and white flourescent lights. Metal tables were topped with sophisticated and sleek looking machines, but the tech was distinctly of earth origin. The men, and occasional woman, in here would have looked equally at home at a barnes and nobles as those in the last room, but were badly out of place in the sterile white environment. A man in a sweater vest and a woman in a blue blazer spotted Erek and made their way over.

"Jake, Cassie. This is Andrew and Tanya. They're the ones responsible for monitoring activity in the locally based chat rooms for Yeerk involvement," Erek introduced the pair politely as Andrew and Tanya shook each of their hands.

"That is when we aren't busy shuttling kids between three different sporting events. If we didn't only need half an hour of reconstitution a night I don't think we'd ever get it done," Andrew said with a quiet laugh. The man looked more like he should be in a PTA meeting than a Chee hideout. Sensing the apparent confusion on Cassie and Jake's faces, Tanya stepped in- equally polite and nice.

"Oh, we're the PTA leaders for our childrens school. We've found that it is easier to avoid detection by becoming more involved rather than less. If you're kids aren't in at least two organized activities these days you're considered a bad parent and, well, the next thing you know you're the talk of the neighborhood. We've had to relocate twice before because other parents began noticing things that they probably shouldn't have simply because we weren't that involved with the kids schooling. One time a teacher even got into the habit of driving by our house on her way home to check up on the kids because we failed to attend several parent teacher conferences," Tanya said, still smiling away dreamily. It was actually begining to become a bit odd as Cassie thought about how many of the parents on the PTA might actually be robots- that certainly would explain a lot.

"That's our tax dollars at work for you," Andrew quipped with a little chuckle that was returned only hesitantly.

"Now we host PTA dinner meetings in our house once a week," Tanya chirped. "People stop looking when you start inviting them to."

"And your... kids?" Jake asked hesitantly.

"Oh! Other Chee dear. Those who are begining their next cycles over from the _very_ begining," Tanya supplied readily.

"Many of us actually find it easier. It's no fun being the new kid in town, even if you are actually an android," Andrew added , still smiling. "Plus it gives us plenty of access to the local schools without having to go through those pesky FBI background checks like teachers. No, the only thing you really need to be PTA president is a really dynamite cookie recipe."

The entire situation was becoming far too stepford-ish for the two humans in the room, and so Cassie and Jake shook their heads before Jake forcibly redirected the flow of the conversation.

"So, you monitor chat room activity. Find anything interesting?"

"Oh! Yes actually, that's why we called you here," Andrew began excitedly before his 'wife' headed him off.

"There has been a lot of recent chatter lately about the dance scene in our town- more specifically about dance education and good instructors."

"Is that really all that unusual?" Cassie asked innocently. To her credit, Jake looked equally confused. Tanya was shaking her head and speaking again.

"Not in and of iteself, no."

"But what's been unusual about it is the criteria the chaters have been using to judge the instructors," Andrew added. "Ties to the community, access to students, if they live alone or with family. And then within the last twenty four hours or so the chatter has died off."

"So, what?" Cassie asked, still confused. "The Yeerks are planning on using dance instructors to infect students?"

"From the sounds of it," Andrew began, "They are only looking at affecting one very particular student."

"How can you tell that?" Jake asked curiously.

"Oh, their wording was innocent enough," Tanya mollified. "But in the end it sounded as though they were all looking for an instructor for what sounded like basically the same girl. Saying things like -"she wouldn't likely trust someone new" and "Getting her involved in the recital on time means working with what they have." Stuff like that"

"So, let me see if I get this straight," Jake said, starting to sound incredulous and just a tad annoyed. "You guys think that the Yeerks are targeting a particular person through dance instructors because of some online chat conversations?"

"That, and the fact that no working mom with two kids would ever really be up on those sites at three in the morning when the kids are going to be up by six," Tanya added. Jake was looking genuinly irritated by now when Cassie grabbed his arm, looking deeply disturbed.

"Oh my God," Her voice was barely a whisper, but Jake and the other Chee present caught every word. "Jake, remember? Director Vaughn went missing last night..."

"So who's he after? Rachel? Or Cassandra?"

Cassie was about to open her mouth again to comment when a red light off to the side of the room went off and the wide screen TV, whcih had been playing a kaleidescope slide show of exotic looking plants and animals, cells, and animations of atoms, suddenly switched to an HD color view shot of the doors to the convention center. The camera quickly looked in on the stern faces of several burly men with military hair cuts calmly entering the building. The various costumes, science trivia, and general nerd parephenalia t-shirts they were wearing did nothing to hide their bulging muscles or clear military demeanor.

"What's going on? Who are those guys?" Jake asked sternly, quickly switching to command mode. In even his most commanding tone didn't command the attention of the centuries old androids in the room however as Erek quickly hustled them into a corner and towards another view screen that was currently raising up to reveal a small square, plate glass window on the outside wall. The window was nearly a foot deep, as it led directly to the outside world, and was about two feet wide and a foot and a half tall. Pushing aside the two inch thick bullet proof glass, Erek stepped aside as other Chee began climbing calmly through the small opening. More Chee were coming through from the lobby area, adding to the que of quickly and efficiently escaping people as Erek spoke calmly and quickly to the two confused humans.

"Ex. Navy Seals according to their military files. They were picked up by our video ID system. They work a branch of the government that's been a real pain in the ass lately. If they're here, that means there's about to be a raid. We've got to get you guys out of here before that happens."

"What about the others?" Cassie asked worriedly as Jake studied the faces on the monitors.

"Cassandra has already left, and Ax is on his way up now. We have an operative moving towards Tobias, Rachel, and Marco but we cannot wait for them before getting you out of here to please move now!" Erek hardly ever yelled, but there was no denying the definate not of command in his voice just now. Jake nodded to Cassie, who bit her lip but eventually nodded as well as Erek breathed an unnecesary sigh of relief, shepparding the two teens to the slot where a dozen or so Chee were currently making a quick exit out to the utilities ladder just outside their little window. In a gap between desceding people, one would hardly notice the two lizards scuttling from the vent onto the concrete surface and down towards the alreayd busy concrete parking lot.

_Liking the re-vamp yet? More coming up! And sometime soon we'll be saying hello to our friends at the SGC again. Yeah!_


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

Major Hanson watched from fifty yards behind the tree line as his scout patrol made their way silently towards the brushy limits of the parking lot, completely invisible in the dense foliage while wearing their standard military issue fatigues. There was little cause for concern, as only the occasional passerby would cross through the otherwise barren parking lot, and never venturing near enough for the soldiers camouflage to be deemed necessary. Hanson, however, was a believer in prudence. They only had one shot to get this right, after all. They only had control of twenty men so far- it was proving more and more difficult to both avoid detection and expand their numbers within this close knit military community. With the structure before them surrounded on nearly all sides by dense forest wood, they simply did not have enough man power to detain and surround the location properly. So long as their target remained within the building, they would be successful. Should their mission prove unsuccessful… he dare not think about the potential consequences.

Hanson could see the scout team returning through the trees, though he knew it was only his advanced military training that allowed him to recognize the slightly shifting shadows in the mottled shade as the movements of men. The three scouts appeared seamlessly from the shadows, stern faced as they stepped before Hanson to deliver their report.

"Two paths in and out on the ground level in addition to easily utilized roof access. Luckily, there appears to be only one way in and out of the parking lot, leading directly to the main road. Path isn't much more than gravel, not wide enough for two cars to pass at speed." The Sargent reported dutifully. Hanson nodded at the man's report. Concise without exclusion.

"Alright boys, block the road. Trees fall in this neck of the woods all the time, don't they now?"

"Yes sir," the scout, Sargent Eames if he remembered correctly, nodded with a mischievous little smirk. The boy nodded to two other men, and he pretended not to notice the enjoyable little gleam in the three younger men's eyes as they checked the small packets of C4 in their cargo pockets and disappeared into the shaded trees. High explosives weren't exactly regulation for tree felling, but he wasn't one to deny his boys a little bit of fun where they could get it.

"Alright, the rest of you, we'll need a team on the roof. Marcovi, Stanson, Wallice, and Jordan. You know the drill. Smoke screen and plug it. Everyone else, you're with me. The front door is reinforced steel, no way to get in without permission, but no way to get out either. Main force will be concentrated on the rear exit- lots of window and wood doors. Once we go in all hell's gonna break loose boys. We won't have time to detain each and every one of them. Just search for the target and get out. Understood?" The men nodded sternly and Major Hanson allowed himself a small smile. "Let's go cause some hell boys."

"Hey man, check these out!" Marco cried as he spun around to show Tobias. His wide grin was most hidden behind the bulky, although admittedly very cool looking, night vision goggles. "You know how easy it would be to go slug hunting at night with a pair of these babies?"

"About as easy as it would be for a bat to do the same thing," Tobias said pointedly, although he couldn't completely contain the small smile at Marco's enthusiasm. Marco's grin dimmed a bit as he took off the goggles and regarded them contemplatively. His expression was much too serious for idle contemplation, and that worried Tobias a bit more than he was willing to admit to his friend.

"You know, I was thinking…" Marco began quietly, closing the distance between the two of them so that they might not be overheard. "We keep going at these things the same way, you know?" Tobias wasn't quite sure he did know, but Marco was quick to elaborate. "Fangs, fur and claws. But paws can't hack computers, or open latches, and every time we shift we run the risk of getting busted or getting stuck. No offense or anything, but you were a lot more helpful when you had opposable thumbs on a regular basis. Plus, by now their expecting that- the scales, and the fur and the feathers. So I was thinking… maybe it's time for a different approach."

It wasn't phrased as a question, just a simple completion of thought. So Tobias didn't feel any immediate need to answer.

It was true that the Yeerks were slowly becoming accustomed to their attacks, and that now days even their best planned sabotage efforts were likely a huge risk with the very real potential to get them all killed.

"What other approach is there?" Tobias asked simply. He was sure that his friend had thought this through more than the others would probably ever realize, but he had yet to come to a logical conclusion in his own mind and was waiting for Marco to fill in the gaps. Rachel had been sulking over by the water fountain ever since he'd walked off, but she had slowly been coming closer and closer to where they were standing. He hadn't realized that she was just a few feet behind him until Marco glanced over his shoulder at her. His expression remained black for a moment before he looked back to Tobias to continue their conversation, not wanting to be overheard and leaving it up to Rachel if she wanted to come closer in order to be included. She did, and a few seconds later Tobias felt her presence just behind him as Marco began to talk.

"We change it up. They still think they got blue fuzzies on their back. So why not take advantage?" Tobias was having some trouble keeping up, but from Rachel's subtle shifting behind him she was more than just following along- she was interested. "If Max can rearrange things, then why can't we? Do a blue fuzzy impression? Run some blitzes, order them a few pizza's off their parents credit cards, maybe even get in a few tackles? We could have them running circles around themselves trying to keep up with us. Then go dark. Re-group while they run themselves ragged trying to play catch up and go in again. Only this time, as us."

"You want to run the risk of actually getting caught?" Rachel was right back to being indignant, with a mood change so swift Tobias just knew that Marco had to be biting back a PMS joke. Instead, the other boy just explained.

"Not US, us. We pull another Max, switch up the faces a little bit, do a body swap or something maybe. Have them thinking there's an entire army out there gunning for them."

Tobias and Rachel just stood there. Tobias with both quite pride and approval at his friends' ingenuity, and bated trepidation as to his girlfriends reaction. She wasn't Marco's biggest fan, that much was obvious, but she had a fiercely militant mind set, and he knew that if she thought that this was truly the brilliant tactical move that Tobias thought it was, that she wouldn't let any of her past grudges get between her and a potential victory. It would be nice to come out on top, just for once.

Rachel, for her part, was too busy watching the wheel of possibility spin in her mind to pay attention to the fact that both boys were now blatantly starring at her. She was still ciphering through some of Marco's coded messages and trying to fully understand his bare bones, overly simplified explanations. But the possibilities were phenomenal. Right now the Yeerks biggest advantage was in their numbers, and they knew it. But if they could make them think that they were being overpowered, that re-enforcements had somehow arrived, the slugs would end up running each other over and chasing their own tails trying to figure out what was going on and get a handle on the situation. In the confusion, they might even be able to do some serious damage. The Yeerks would never dream of expecting a full frontal attack by an army of Andalite's, they were expecting subterfuge and rodents and cockroaches. They could ramp it up, week after week, send the slugs into a tail spin. They couldn't win this way, it just wasn't happening- not six against six thousand. But Marco was right. Work them into a tizzy- get in a few quick shots, and then go dark? They would run themselves ragged chasing a figment of their imaginations.

It wasn't an end game, not by a long shot. But it was a hell of a lot better than what they were doing now, watching the Yeerks take more and more innocent people, barely holding any ground, running _themselves_ ragged just trying to keep up with the invading forces. They were fighting a loosing battle and they all knew it. Even if none of them wanted to admit it. This wasn't going to win the way, but it might at least win the battle.

Rachel looked up at the two boys still watching her intently, and for a moment- nothing. Marco gulped nervously, giving Rachel no small amount of satisfaction, before a wide, lopsided grin slowly began to spread on her face.

"Sounds like we have a new plan." Tobias clapped Marco heartily on the back as Rachel laughed, out loud, at the daft expression on Marco's face. It had been a long time since she'd laughed aloud. A very long time.

Marco's own grin slowly began to grow as he set down the night vision goggles, and Tobias continued to cheer his friend on while Rachel just smirked and shook her head at the scene unfolding before her. None of them hear the quiet clatter of a metal cylinder rolling out of the glass elevator shaft just a few feet to their left. None of them heard the quiet hiss as the cylinders set to their work. No, the first thing they noticed anything was wrong was when the smell of smoke reached their noses. And by then- it was already too late.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"Having fun with your rock yet?" Jack asked sardonically from the doorway as he sipped casually on his coffee. The blond head in front of him didn't move from where it was poised directly over the smooth obsidian black stone, the small glowing red dot the only sign that the rock was anything but. That it was actually some form of very advanced alien technology that they had no idea what it was, or what it did, or even where it came from. Daniel was apparently following up some leads on that while Sam had simply chosen to lock herself up with the rock, poking and prodding at the thing until she could make it do something… alien-y.

Smirking at his sudden opportunity, Jack set his coffee down on the desk by the door and silently made his way over to where Carter was sitting, a small little smile on his face as he put his head almost directly over his friends shoulder and spoke loudly, his voice echoing in the small room. "What'cha doing Carter?"

The effect was immediate as Carter jumped nearly a foot in the air, half falling off her chair as she spun around to see her commanding officer standing just over her shoulder, a look of barely restrained mirth spread across his face as his eyes glinted mischievously. Her eyes snapped to a glare and he just grinned happily, making her roll her eyes in exasperation before she took her seat again.

"Daniel kick you out of his office again sir?" Carter asked tiredly. She'd been starring at this damned rock for nearly eighteen hours straight now, and had yet to make any progress on the matter. The stone seemed to absolutely refuse to give us its secrets to her. Only the faint pulsing of the little red light on the side of the stone reassured her at all that it was in fact a piece of alien technology, and not a simply garden stone from one of her neighbors yards. It had proved resistant to X-Ray, Cat Scan, MRI, Sonography, Ultrasound, even some of the Asgard methods they had at their disposal had still turned up nothing. If she was getting no where with her work, uninterrupted, then she could only imagine how Daniel was faring, with Jack harassing him endlessly. It was never out of any sort of maliciousness on Jack's part, he was simply bored out of his mind since they had been grounded to allow for both her and Daniels to work on the stone and felt the need to share some of that boredom and insanity around. She wouldn't have put it past Daniel to, upon reaching the end of his rope with their commanding officer, foist the man upon her by suggesting that she was spending too much time in her lab.

"Nah, he was even setting up a fresh pot of coffee when he mentioned that he hadn't seen you in the commissary over the last few… he did it again didn't he?" Jack suddenly asked, disgruntled at the prospect of having been manipulated by the little book worm.

"Yep," Sam answered with a happy little chuckle. "You know, for such a terrible liar, he sure has figured you out… sir."

Jack grimaced at Sam's observation, and a little more at the delayed address. Started mumbling under his breath about insubordinate little geeks thinking they could get away with… unfortunately that was when Sam's rather un-lady like chuckling snort broke through and she could no longer hear Jack's faint grumbling. She was certain he was about to go into a full blown rant about something or other when a sudden crashing thump from out in the hall caught his attention. The Colonel sat on high alert at the sudden intrusion, but Sam just sighed tiredly and put her head in her hands as none other than the walking disaster zone himself stepped into her lab not two seconds later.

"What did you break now Jay?"

"Who, me?" Felger asked nervously before glancing back out in the hallway. "Oh! That… that was just a mop bucket. No big deal. Happens to me all the time." He was smiling at her non-chalantly, obviously trying to appear calm cool and collected as he put his hand down on the nearest table to lean casually on it. The papers under his hand promptly slid across the surface and he flailed momentarily to remain upright as the small stack of paper fell crashing to the ground. "Ooh, sorry about that. I'll just…"

"Do you ever consider looking before you walk?" Jack asked rhetorically, gazing at the accident prone scientist incredulously. Before Jay could answer though, Sam cut him off.

"What did you want Jay?" Felger stood up, papers slipping from his grasp. At Sam's look, however, he let the fallen papers be and set the few that still remained in his grasp back on the desk. He grinned excitedly as he took a few steps towards her and shoved his hands into his pockets. Sam was about to ask him again what he was so excited about when he pulled two pairs of retro, red and blue 3-D glasses from his pockets.

"Swamp Man III, that iconic sci-fi film from the 1950's, has been colorized and reformatted to 3-D for your modern viewing pleasure!" Jay said in his best impersonation of a movie announcers voice. He was looking at Sam with expectant joy as she felt a sweep of cold dread pass through her body, realizing what he was asking her. "There's a showing down at the Dragon's Lair, it's this old comic book shop but they've got a back room all kitted out for movie showings that can fit almost a hundred people in it. They've only got the license for this weekend though before the DVD gets sent out for general release on Monday and I was wondering if…"

Sam was now looking desperately back at the Colonel, who was glaring at her completely unsympathetically. She looked back at Felger, mouth gaping desperately for some sort of answer that would get her out of this horrifying situation without crushing the admittedly very sensitive scientist.

"Jay…"

"Whoa, did you see this?" Sam was saved from having to say anything by Jay's excited proclamation as he starred at the black stone, still as silent as always, with the exception of the small blinking red light, with something approaching reverence.

"See what?" She asked, now honestly curious. Jay may have been many things, but he was not an incredible actor, and right now he was looking at the small blinking stone on her desk as if it were the greatest thing since the stargate.

Glancing back at Sam, still wearing his ridiculous 3-D glasses, Jay suddenly looked as if lightning had just struck his brain. Wrenching Carters own 3-D glasses from her hand, he crammed them on her head, with a faint burst of complaint from Carter and a raised eyebrow from Jack, and spun her in her chair to look at the stone. Same was about to complain firmly about Jay's sudden erratic behavior and kick the man out of her lab, when she felt her breath leave her chest.

The black stone before her was nearly completely covered in flashes of minute, scratchy, symbolic script that pulsed and glowed in a variety of colors and a variety of tempos, all independent of each other. She couldn't distinguish one portion of script from another if not for the slightly varying patterns of light. The small glowing red light that they had all seen under normal light was not the only one. Other specs of color littered the stones surface, usually with more script surrounding it, though some had symbols apparently buried within the small glowing dots. The sight of it was breathtaking, and made something pull at the back of Carters heart. She could scarcely breath, her pulse was hammering rapidly in her ears and she could barely hear the choked sob that escaped her throat before she was roughly turned around in her seat, the 3-D glasses ripped from her face.

Jack was standing in front of her, face full of worry and concern. She'd forgotten he was even here. Jay was standing in a far corner of the room, rubbing not so discretely at his damp, red rimmed eyes, his back turned to them. Carter swiped at her cheek absent mindedly and was surprised to find moisture there. She hadn't realized that she was crying.

"Are you okay?" Jack asked, both stern and worried at the same time. She would have needled him for being such a mother hen if her heart didn't hurt so much. She hadn't felt this bad since her mother…

Realizing that Jack was still waiting for an answer she tentatively cleared her throat, surprised at how hoarse she sounded when she actually managed to speak. "No sir… I'm really not…"

Jack gave her another cursory glance over, obviously looking for any signs of physical damage. Resigning himself to the fact that he would find none, he nodded reluctantly and helped Carter to her feet.

"Come on then, let's go see Janet." They were leaving the lab when he remembered the bleary eyes scientist still huddled in the corner and grabbed him by the sleeve to drag him along as well. "You too Felger. Can't have you moping through the hallways looking like someone just killed your cat."

Jack felt a little bad about his comment when he heard a choked sob coming from the other man, but squashed that down as he focused on guiding the two distraught scientists towards the medical labs.

No one saw four men in fatigues cross the quiet parking lot, darting in between cars as if their camouflaged uniforms would help to hide them against the gold sedans and blue mini-vans. A large jeep soon found itself being hotwired as it was carefully parked into place, sitting parallel with the large metal doors on the front of the building, not two inches between it and the doors. A few quick jabs at the tires and the jeep was slowly sinking closer to the earth, ensuring extra resistance against what would eventually be a panicked mob as the four men returned just as quietly to the tree line before making their way around to the back where their commander stood waiting. As they crossed into the trees they could hear the faint echoing puff of a small explosion followed by the sounds of a tree crashing back down to earth a few clicks away. That would be three more men to join the surge when they approached the back. Amongst the trees, the men smiled, eager to apprehend their target and complete their mission. Up on the roof, it was a different story.

Lieutenant Andrew Walters was a twenty two year old green recruit, fresh out of the academy and easy pickings as they had steadily infiltrated the military operation. What they hadn't counted on was the young mans willpower and level of resistance. He grimaced, his hands shaking as he tried to work the latches on his pack. One of the other men, the leader of their little side op, noticed this and grimaced at him.

"Get control of yourself boy. It's your body, you'd best make it do what you want or someone else will make it for you," the man barked.

Walters swallowed nervously and, with a violent surge of will, forced the shaking of his hands to quiet down, at least for now. "Yes sir. Everything's under control, sir."

"See that it stays that way," was his commanders parting remark as they all turned towards the glass elevator. A small amount of plastic explosives had been fixed to the cable wires hauling it up, the small detonator blinking back at them as they waited for the signal, three men holding a half a dozen smoke grenades between them, the fourth with finger on the trigger switch of the small plastic detonator. Two minutes later, the order came.


	15. Chapter 15

So- how about this, huh? Three weeks of solid updates in a row? I wonder how long I can keep this up…

Reviews help to feed the muse! And constructive criticism and creative feed back are its caffine!

FEED THE MUSE!

**Chapter Fifteen**

The smoke was sharp and caustic as it hit them. The thin white vapors were hardly visible to the naked eye, particularly as the eyes would start to water violently long before the smoke was ever visibly noticeable. People milling around the fountains and the elevator hit the floor, gasping and choking, eyes tearing, leaving small streams pouring down their cheeks, and more than a few people rubbing violently at their noses as those two began to dribble with the spread of the smoke. The crowds that had been milling about the booths didn't know what was going on, why these people were suddenly on the ground choking and crying, calling out for help and panicking as the effects only worsened. Some even rushed forward to try and help, only to crumpled when the acrid fumes reached them too. Realization dawned slowly on the crowd as people began backing up steadily in herds, heading for the doors. The slow backwards crawl became a job, and then a run, and then an all out sprint as the smoke spread, people screaming and crying, trampling over one another to reach the exits, logic and caution gone as group of civilized, intelligent people began to panic. People tried to force their way forwards through the crowds, but it did no good. Though they could not see it, as far back as they were, the entire occupancy of the building had pushed forwards towards those two ends of the building with exits, and the thing blocking their way now was yards upon yards of bodies pressed closely together, each one scrambling, panicking, trying to get out. The doors were sealed, but they didn't know that. And so they climbed up on top of each other, walking on the see of closely packed bodies, sometimes falling and creating pits of twisting human limbs, each one trying to claw over the other in a vain attempt to escape.

Ten yards from the sea of thrashing bodies, an old man sat on his folding chair behind his table booth, and watched calmly as the gas crawled steadily towards him. From the color of the vapors he could see rising in the middle of the square, he knew he was more likely to be killed in the trampling mob than by the gas. He watched at the people panicked, and poured water from the bottle he'd had sitting at his foot over one of the black T-shirts he was selling and wrapped the thing about his face. It wouldn't protect him, not completely, but it would at least stave off the affects of the gas. He knew what the fumes would do to him, and waited calmly as they approached, coughing lightly as they began to seep up from the bottom of his T-shirt protection. After all- with all the time he spent selling T-shirts around young women, this wasn't exactly the first time he'd ever been pepper sprayed.

Back in the square, a few more can tinkled quietly down the elevator shafts and softly began to hiss out their painful chemical concoctions. A number of people were still flailing about, coughing, sputtering, eyes tears, fluids leaking from damn near every opening that had been affected by the smoke. A small clutch of people sat huddled behind one of the upset tables, coughing quietly into their shirts and handkerchiefs. Through the smoke, they all looked like huddled masses, but they did not flail and cry out like the rest of those strewn out across the floor. Another dark shape quickly crossed through the thickening smoke, arms laden down, and the clatter of metal on concrete could be heard along with a soft shuffling before the quiet coughing that had once racked the small group faded completely.

Marco, Rachel and Tobias squatted down amongst the small group of refugees from the smoke. There were about a dozen of them, largely hidden from view behind the tables and covered by the veil of fumes, squatting together in a protective huddle. A few young men, probably in college, an older man with long white hair in a pony tail and a bald spot, a scared looking teenage girl, no older than fifteen, a mother in a star trek shirt holding tightly to her young daughter, the middle aged man who had just come scuttling across, and the three of them. They looked at each other through the visors of night vision goggles, paint ball gear, and lab goggles, each one clutching tightly to the small metal re-breathers that the man had just brought over. The mother was still trying to convince her frightened daughter to bite down on the mouthpiece, but the child was coughing too much to keep it in her mouth. The man came over to help her once all the other re-breathers had been passed out and, only after finally securing the child to her tank in her mothers arms, he sat down beside them, his arm laid comfortingly around the woman's shoulders. They were a motley crew at best, and as Marco, Rachel and Tobias all looked at each other worriedly, they all just sat their, waiting out the smoke, frightened and uncertain as the sounds of panicking people clawing for the doors was slowly replaced by horrendous coughing fits until eventually that too faded out from hearing.

So now they sat, watching each other expectantly through the white fumes and distorted view of their goggles, sucking quietly on their re-breathers in a small pocket of the world, isolated by white swirling fumes and silence. And they had no idea what was going on.

Cassie wiped the tears angrily from her eyes, furious at herself for letting some stupid bigot get to her that much. She didn't know why it bothered her so much, other than just out of sheer moral principal. She'd met people with those views before, though she hadn't understood it at first. Hadn't understood why a difference in skin pigmentation and religious beliefs could inspire such anger. Everyone on Hanka had worshipped the Goddess, the same one who would eventually kill them all, simply because that was how it had always been. Some had been true believers, others afraid of the consequences if they did not at least keep up appearances, and others simply jaded with the entire thing. There had been traders coming to Hanka for a long time, and yes- many of them had different skin tones. They had looked different, funny even, but it had been a point of innocent curiosity with which children had followed these foreign traders around, not bigoted anger. So when she'd come to earth, she hadn't understood all the conflict, all the tension. Not until her mother explained to it her.

Some people felt that they were better than others. Superior. Just because of who they were or how they were born. And they treated all others who were different as if they didn't count. As if they weren't even real people, with real feelings.

That she had understood. Nirti had proclaimed herself better, though she was truly nothing more than a parasitic snake residing in the back of some poor woman's head. She had proclaimed all of them weak and underserving. 'Inconsequential', she had said, to her final plans. And so they had died. They had all died. Everyone she had ever known and loved. Her family, her classmates. Her parents, her little brother, her cousins and grandparents. Even her best friend had not been spared. Just because one person thought they had that power- thought that they were better than the others just because they were different.

So Cassandra understood now, and the thought of it made her blood boil. She had lost too much, hurt too much for one life time to ever be anywhere near someone who felt like that. It was an ugly, dark emotion and Cassandra didn't want anything to do with it. She hadn't thought that Max would have either. Laying her head against the steering wheel she closed her eyes, not bothering to wipe away the tears as they fell this time and pretending she didn't hear the pitiful little sniffle as she pined for a boy she had only just met, had barely known in the first place, but whom she'd hoped to get to know better.

Cassandra has stormed out of the building nearly twenty minutes ago, all full of hell fire and brimstone and intent on pealing out of the parking lot as fast as she dared to in her old car. But when she'd opened the door and sat down, she'd only gotten as far as turning the car on and buckling her seat belt before she'd collapsed against the steering wheel, the faulty air conditioner blowing warm air in her face as the badly tuned radio chimed in with some crappy Alanis Morissett song. Finally, feeling her cheeks dry and her breathing hitch, she sat up in her seat, still gripping the steering wheel pointlessly and feeling more exhausted than she had any right to be as she stared out into the empty parking lot.

Or maybe, not so empty after all…

Cassandra sat forward a little more, trying to catch a glimpse of the shadow that had just caught her eye, when three people in military uniforms darted in between two cars several yards ahead of her, crouched low so as to avoid detection, AK-47's strapped securely to their backs and nine mill's at their waist and thigh. But what chilled her most was the immediately recognizable patch sewn into the arm of their military jackets. Her blood ran cold and she could have sworn she felt her heart freeze in her chest. As the last man ducked behind the next car she finally came to her senses and slouched so low in her seat so quickly that from the outside it would have looked like she had simply disappeared if anyone had blinked. She sat so low she was practically folded up beneath the dashboard, knees pressed to her chest and feet kept carefully away from the gas pedal. She reached up one shaky hand and carefully grabbed hold of the key that was still in the ignition, turning off the engine in what she could only hope had been a stealthy move. She sat there like that, waiting for the men with guns to spot her and rip open the car door, dragging her out and throwing a hood over her head, maybe tying her hands behind her back with zip-ties, or maybe they would just skip the formalities all together and pump her so full of bullets she would have to be identified through DNA records.

When that didn't happened, curiosity got the better of her and, despite her mother chanting 'curiosity killed the cat' over and over again in her head, she lifted her chin up and, bracing herself on the front drivers side seat, peered up over the rim of the dashboard.

The men were now sitting in a jeep, about twenty yards directly ahead of her, but apparently weren't intending to go anywhere as all three promptly jumped out made quick work of the tires, though they were little match for a K-bar knife in the first place. And, just like that, the men were ducking off towards the woods again and slipping seamlessly into the tree line.

Cassandra sat there, the top of her head peering cautiously over the dash board, for at least another five minutes before she dared to move any further. Sliding herself back up into her seat, she looked at the place where the men had just disappeared into the trees before glancing back to the Jeep that they had apparently just abandoned. It took her a few moments longer than she was likely to ever admit to realize that the jeep was now pressed firmly up against the large metal utility doors, the only entrance on this side of the building. Seeing something slip by the corner of her eye in the rear view mirror. Twisting in her seat so fast she was liable to give herself whiplash, she thought she caught the outlines of four men slipping through the edge of the tree line towards the main road, but she wasn't certain. She was still peering after the mysterious figures when she heard it. A considerable whack of heavy metal against metal and rubber. Twisting around in her seat again, and this time wincing as she actually did manage to give herself whiplash, she saw the front door of the building being pushed open from the inside. The Jeep shuddered and slid a few inches, leaning precariously for a moment, before the pressure on the door slacked off for a few vital seconds and the jeep fell back into place, blocking the door from opening more than a few inches, despite the apparently tremendous forces pushing at it from the inside as metal groaned against metal. A few moments later, Cassie saw the acrid white fumes rising from the top of the building, and that was when she acted.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

Ax jogged silently amongst the cars as he traveled around the far side of the building in the company of several equally silent Chee. There was no need for talking now. They would sort out who and why later. All they needed to know now was that they were in danger and that they needed to evacuate the area immediately, lest they risk being discovered by some apparently rogue branch of the United States Armed Forces. Not long ago he had been standing in a crowded hallway, one hand pressed tentatively to his still stinging cheek as he watched Cassandra disappear into the swirling crowds of humans, her blond hair swishing angrily after her as she passed. Her cheeks had been flushed, her eyes glinting dangerously, and though it had caused him more than a small amount of pain to see all that anger directed at him, all the thoughts that would come to his head seemed to revolve around-

"Oh goodness… she is absolutely stunning when she is angry…"  
This was, of course, an entirely unhelpful thing to be thinking at that particular moment. Primarily because he still had yet to determine the exact cause of the human females anger. By the time he had collected his thoughts enough to move towards action, however, Cassandra had long since disappeared into the constantly moving crowds. Still intent on pursuing her, he had become rather lost and was beginning to grow quite despondent when a Chee operative had suddenly appeared at his elbow, flanked by several others and insisting that he needed to leave the facility immediately. After a very short conversation, he had agreed, and the four of them had quickly made their way towards a concealed exit running along the side of the building.

Both Ax and the Chee operatives saw the armed military men moving through the trees off to their left, but neither party acted upon that observation, instead choosing to pretend that they had not noticed their rather intimate proximity to a great deal of bullets.

With the woods no longer serving as a viable exit, the Chee had begun directing Ax along the side of the building towards a large white panel van sitting in the middle of the parking lot. Though unsure if this method of escape would fail to avoid capture, he felt it best not to argue- as it would likely accomplish nothing other than slowing down their progress.

The smell of acrid fumes reached Ax's nose as he rounded the corner, and he could not resist the reflex to scrunch up his nose. The Chee had also apparently noticed the smell, as they all looked distinctly uncomfortable, but none slowed their pace. Ax's gaze darted around the parking lot even as he struggled to keep up with the Chee while looking nonchalant when he saw her. She was standing by the partially opened main entrance, a Jeep obstinately blocking the doors path, holding the hem of her T-shirt over her nose as she gripped the hand of someone clearly trying to scrape their way out of the building. Smoke was now pouring from the top of the door frame, and from the top of the building itself. Tears were streaming down Cassandra's face and she was clearly finding it difficult to keep control of her breathing as she fought the urge to cough, but there she was, holding onto that panicked, scrambling hand and looking desperately around the parking lot for something, anything to help. Green eyes met blue and Ax found himself peeling off from a suddenly very upset group of Chee operatives and making a B-line for the main doors before he was even aware of it.

There had to be something. With the gas stinging her eyes and making it difficult for her to breath, it was hard to really see what was lying around. There had to be something though- there just had to be. The young woman who had managed to shove her arm through the door was gripping helplessly at her hand, terrified and calling out for help in between bouts of ragged coughing- but there was nothing she could do! The Jeep was wedged to closely to the door, and with the keys broken off in the ignition, she couldn't even shift the damn thing into neutral to roll it out of the way. But this was a warehouse- maybe there was a forklift or something nearby- or even just a really big truck that she could use to push the jeep out of position…

Blue met green when she looked across the parking lot, and suddenly he was sprinting towards her. She had only two seconds to feel apprehensive before she found him knelt down beside her, shirt collar held up protectively over his nose even as his eyes started to water.

"What can I do to help?" All thoughts of their previous confrontation faded from her mind as she set herself to the task of helping those still trapped inside. She had help now, and people who were counting on her. That was all that mattered.

"We need… to move… th.. Jeep," her voice was hoarse and broken up by intermittent coughing fits, but understandable. Max just nodded in understanding and went sprinting off back towards the three men he'd been walking with before. For a few seconds it seemed like they were engaged in a heated debate, but Cassandra really didn't have time to sit around watching them argue. Giving the hand in her grasp a reassuring squeeze before letting go, she took a step back to examine the side of the building. It had to be around here somewhere, it just had- bingo!

A small, innocuous metal box, about eight feet up along the side of the wall to the doors left, was looking back down at her innocently. Scrambling around, she found nothing else to help prop her up, and so instead she set about climbing the side of the Jeep. Standing tippy toe on the back edge of the jeep bed, she reached out her fingertips only to find that the box was still a few inches out of her grasp. A gentle tap on her ankle made her look down so fast that she would have fallen if Max had not steadied her. He gestured wordlessly to his shoulders and Cassandra took the hint, shifting her footing from the Jeep, to Max's broad, but slender and admittedly wobbly shoulders. Cassandra reached out again, but was still an inch short of her goal until Max took two steps to his left and Cassandra's fingers managed to grasp onto the front panel of the small metal box. She heard a groaning from down below- the sound of metal and rubber groaning against concrete, but paid it no mind as she quickly scanned the levers, switched and buttons until she found the right one. It was an innocuous little thing- a small black button recessed into the metal, but Cassandra swiftly removed a hair clip and, jabbing it into the button, smiled to herself when she heard the ringing of a fire alarm and the swishing pitter patter of artificial rain as the emergency fire suppression system kicked on inside.

Max grasped her ankles tightly as Cassandra crouched down on his shoulder, his hands eventually coming to hold onto her hips as she leapt down from her perch, guided lightly by Max's gentle grasp. His hands were still on her hips when she landed. His shirt had slipped from his face during the time she had spent on his shoulders, but he did nothing to correct it and Cassandra let her own shirt collar fall as well. He was looking at her with this indescribable expression- half sorrow and half something else. Something unnamed. His chip dipped as he leaned forward, and Cassandra made no moves to push away from him as he did so.

A hand on Max's shoulder pulled him abruptly away, and Cassandra realized for the first time that the three other boys who had been accompanying Max were yelling at them for the first time. The Jeep had been pushed mostly off to the side, but the metal door had not opened any further as only slight wisps of white fumes still escaped the top, water beginning to run out the bottom of the door in tiny, but rapidly growing little rivulets.

"Alright- we have to go now!" the boy was yelling. The other two were standing nearby, oddly and disturbingly calm as the sounds of people coughing and crying out for help faded somewhat behind the metal doors. She could hear the sounds of people once again pushing at the giant doors, trying in vain to force them open. Max was about to take a step forward when Cassandra caught onto his elbow.

"We can't leave!" Her voice was desperate, and the other boy looked about ready to argue, but Max's gaze was focused solely and unflinchingly on hers. She spoke softer this time, quietly pleading, but Max heard every word. "The door is jammed. There are people in there who might need medical attention. We have to get them out…please- help me."

Max only nodded once and got behind Cassandra as they both pulled in vain against the heavy doors.

"It's no use!" The boy yelled, a mixture of frustration and exasperation creeping into his voice now. "The door is too heavy! We have to leave now before…"

"Before what?" Cassandra snapped, eyes blazing once again. She could feel Max's gaze on her with that odd expression again, but ignored it as she stared down her new opponent. "Before the guys in military uniforms with guns come back and shoot us all?" The boy looked startled, but Cassandra only scoffed. "Yeah- I saw them too. And I'm not leaving thousands of people trapped in a gassed out flooding building to be shot at like fish in a barrel, so you can either help me to open these damned doors and we can all get out of here together, or you can shut the hell up and stay out of my way!"

Cassandra turned her attention back to the door, effectively ignoring the boys stunned expression and, after a moment, she could feel Max pulling at the door from behind her as well. A few moments after that, she felt the added strength of three boys pulling at the door, grunting as they yanked on it with all their strength and then, with an all mighty metal sigh, the door began to give.

It didn't open, not really. The metal had buckled at about knee height between the two doors from where the Jeep had hit it and it did not appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. But the upper portion of the door was. Under the weight of the three other boys, for neither Max nor Cassandra could be said to really be contributing anything to this effort at this point, the metal was slowly pealing back like the skin of a banana. Finally peeled back as far as it would go, the boys stepped back, looking completely unfazed as Cassandra examined the bent metal. There were faint impressions on the solid metal doors, other than all the other dings, bends, and scratches that a door normally collects, where the boys had gripped them…

Movement caught Cassandra's eye as the first person struggled to step over the bent doorway and out into the open air the crowds pushing slowly at him from behind. Both Max and Cassandra stepped forward and helped the individual out, Cassandra escorting him a small ways away and settling the puffy eyed, gasping, soggy, and generally exhausted and stunned man along the wall a few feet away from the door as Max helped the next person through. Going back to take the young woman's arm, an arm she distinctly recognized, and settle her too along the wall, she briefly caught max's eyes again.

Blue met green, and though she knew it was woefully inadequate, she slowly mouthed the words_ 'thank you' _to him. Max just smiled and nodded, grabbing onto the next person making their way out of the bent door frame as Cassandra escorted the last young woman to her own space a little ways away to recuperate before turning back to the the army of silent, gasping victims struggled to squeeze themselves through the tiny, narrow opening and out into the clear air.


	17. Chapter 17

Ok- had to share this. Was writing a little bit of Jake's future story line when I heard this and I think it'll help explain to a lot of you exactly what's up with some of the Animorphs and their erratic behavior.

.com/watch?v=Bw3tYiAFVfg&feature=bf_next&list=PL0BD69368AB943C89&lf=rellist

And, as always, feed the Muse! Constructive criticism, questions, whatever. I will try to respond to any and all questions in the intro's again like I was doing once upon a time. So keep writing reviews before my muse starves to death and goes on strike for poor working conditions!

I do apologize for the delays, but to be fair, I did warn all you guys about this months ago- midterms = no time to write. I'm going to try to get a few more chappies up in the next few weeks before taking a winter holidays hiatus to deal with school and work and stuff.

In the meantime though- on with the story!

**Chapter Seventeen**

"We have to go back!" Cassie cried out desperately, looking back at the disturbingly quiet building behind them. White fumes were pouring out from the top of the building, and no one could seem to get in touch with any of the others. Jake stood beside here with this unreadable expression on his face, still as stone, one hand resting on the tree beside him as he scanned over the area below them while keeping his position obscured from below. Seven years of war had honed in on all of them the importance of seeing the enemy before they saw you- even if you weren't always sure who the enemy was. Cassie turned back to Erek in desperation at Jake's lack of response. "Marco, Rachel and Tobias are all still in there! And we can't find Ax or Cassandra anywhere! We have to go back!"

"It is too dangerous," Erek answered solemnly, he even seemed honestly remorseful at Cassie's heartbroken look. "Operatives are reporting in from all over these woods that there are armed men closing in on the area. We can't be certain of their numbers, and we have to get out of here before they close in on our location. We have to go-"

"We can't just LEAVE THEM!" Cassie screeched, outraged. She knew that everything Erek was saying was true, knew that he was only being logical, but she had lost too much over the years, though not as much as some of the others, and could not fathom loosing her friends- no, her family. They were her family now, she realized with a start. Likely had been for a long time. She wasn't sure how long the distance had been growing between her and her parents, likely since the beginning, but she knew now that she was closer to this rag tag group of war torn teenagers than to her own blood. These people with whom she fought on a regular basis, the people she would get pissed at and never want to speak to again, the people who could irritate her to no end, the same people that she would live or die for- they were her family. And she would NOT lose them.

She heard Erek's startled pauses and Jake's angry objections as her skin began to crawl, but she was scampering up the tree that Jake had been leaning against before any of them could object. She was much faster at this than any of them, after all, had practiced more, acquired more animals, spent longer in morph than quite possible anyone other than Ax and Tobias. Tiny paws scampered across rough bark, the world a hazy black and white around her that seemed crystal clear to her tiny furry mind. Back straightened, tail curled up beside her, sitting up on her back legs, a tiny grey squirrel looked out at the strange concrete complex before it, its nose wrinkling in distaste at the burning caustic scent of the white fumes, and reached out with its mind for the missing members of her family.

_'__Where__are__you__guys__…'_

"Are you sure you're okay now?" Janet asked cautiously. Sam still looked pale and a little shaky, not to mention completely exhausted, but was otherwise physically fine.

"Yeah." Her voice was hoarse, and Janet mentally added it to her list of symptoms, still looking at her friend in deep concern. Sam seemed certain in her answer, but Janet knew the other woman too well to not recognize when she was holding something back. A Disapproving glare made Sam shrug into herself a little bit, and grimace before finally dishing out the big bad secret. "I'm just… sad. Really really sad."

"Like a depression? Could the device have caused a sudden imbalance of neurotransmitters? I'm ordering a high resolution contrast fMRI and additional blood work," Janet declared, ushering another nurse over who had been tending to one Jay Felger. The man was still lying on his back on another of the medical beds, an arm tossed over his face, likely to preserve some of his little remaining dignity and hide the sight of his puffy, red, tear stained face if the sounds of his sniffling were any indication. Janet knew she was engaging in blatant favoritism here, but comforted herself in the fact that it was Nurse Molly, a new addition whom Jay had taken an apparent interest in initially, that was still currently left attending to the distraught man. Though she was sure it did nothing to help his wounded pride, she could at least remain hopefully that it might end in a date for the hopelessly socially awkward young scientist and end Molly's constant pining.

"No- it's nothing like that," Sam argued, though she didn't protest the drawing of additional blood by the nurse, despite the number of times she'd been stuck before. The fact that Jack was still hovering protectively in the corner of the room may have had something to do with her uncharacteristic compliance. Sam sighed and rubbed a hand across her face, scrubbing at it tiredly. "I'm starting to feel better already, I just…" Sam looked like she was about to trail off, but a look from Janet, one part encouraging and one part reprimanding, forced her to finish her sentence. "I looked at the stone and I just felt lost, and scared… and god, so lonely I felt like it would break me into pieces." Sam's voice hitched at this last part, but if either Janet or Jack noticed, which they probably had, they didn't mention it, knowing it would likely bring a halt to Sam's narration. And so Sam continued. "I felt like I was reliving every horrible thing that had ever happened to me, but in little bits and pieces chopped up and put out of order."

"It this was what it was trying to tell us, then I think I'd rather not know the rest," Jay murmured miserably from his end of the infirmary. He still had one arm draped across his face, but the others were quick to notice that Molly was holding the other one comfortingly, rubbing small circles in the man's larger, lab calloused hand. When he got no response, Jay peeked out at them from under his arm in confusion and, seeing their own confusion, dropped his arm and sat up, swinging his legs over the other side of the cot to look at them curiously. Jack had to admit it, the guy was holding it together better than he would have thought. His eyes were still red and puffy, his face tired and tear stained, but he wasn't crying anymore, even though he clearly wanted to. But right now, scientific curiosity was over riding all of that, and he was looking at them all as if they had not noticed that the sky was blue or something.

"What do you mean- 'talk to us'?" Sam asked curiously, her own pain and discomfort slowly being over ridden by the desire to understand the inexplicable.

"Well it's obvious, isn't it?" Jay asked, apparently astounded that they hadn't come to the same conclusions he had.

"Apparently not Felger. So Spill it would ya'- what's up with the funky glowing rock?" Jack snapped in irritatation. Felger flinched back, suitably reprimanded, but continued with his explanation just as calmly and probably with more confidence than Jack had ever heard the man speak before.

"It's communicating with us, I'm not sure how exactly, but by using the only medium it's sure that we'll understand for reference," when everyone continued to stare at him blankly, Jay filled in the gaps, still honestly and innocently astounded that they had not all reached the same conclusions. "Our memories?"

His grand revelation was met with a few seconds of silence before Janet tentatively began to speak out. "But how could it…?"

"I'm not sure exactly on the how's- we'll have to run more tests for that," Jay declared brusquely, brushing the question aside as if it were nothing while continuing on with his explanation. "But it's using a frame of reference it was sure it could understand to communicate with us by slicing together bits of our own memories to tell a story board." A light bulb suddenly went off in Jack's head at the reference, finally starting to understand what Jay was getting at, but both of the girls were still struggling to keep up.

"The alien rock made a comic book out of your worst memories to try and tell a story," Jack summed up, looking at Jay with no small amount of disbelief, but the scientist just shrugged. "Why?"

"No clue," Jay answered honestly, wiping away the last of the tears still staining his face as he lost himself in his mental analysis of the tiny little alien device that had caused them so much trouble in such a short amount of time. "But whatever the message is, it must have been pretty damn important for them to go through such lengths to make us understand. Or it could be that this was just the way their species communicated, though that's slightly unlikely considering how inaccurate the interpretations could be."

"So, what was it saying?" Jack asked, apparently the kind of reason in this whole big mess. At his question, however, Jay actually shuddered and looked hesitantly towards Sam.

"Well, if we both got the same message…" Sam looked away at this point, while Jay just stared absently at his own knees, his mind clearly far away as he recounted the memories flashing through his head. Molly winced, the other man still had a hold of her fragile hands and was clutching them tightly, but she did nothing to remove herself from his grip and steadied herself, determined to remain by the man's side- though whether out of professional duty or something else Jack didn't particularly want to look into. "At first, I just remembered being at the park, feeding the ducks and playing with my grandfather's terrier when I was a kid. I thought it was kind of weird, but that was about it. And then all of a sudden I was sitting in my Grandma's lap while we watched the news- it was the day that my grandpa died in a plane crash and it was all over the news. Before I could even understand everything that was going on that day I remembered running from bully's at school, and then Johnny Lebowitz cornering me behind the cafeteria to kick the crap out of me." So far none of this had sounded too bad, but Jay was getting progressively tenser as the conversation went on, as evidenced by Molly's determinedly restrained grimace. "Then attending my step-dad's funeral when I was thirteen, he'd only been married to my mom for two years before he died. More running, getting separated from my family at Disney world when I was six. Then it was when I was eight and I was with my Grandma at the hospital when she died. And… and then it was watching Coombs get taken on that away mission and almost snaked. And then being involved in that skirmish on P3X-258, and loosing Dr. Myers on our way back to the Gate…"

Jay trailed off as they all remembered the incident. It had only been a few months ago actually. A Go'auld attack while a science team had been off world on an apparently abandoned planet doing soil sampling and telemetry readings. Three scientists had been hit in the attack. One knocked back into the blast of a forming wormhole as they tried to escape, not even leaving a body to take home, the other receiving a staff blast through the chest and the third getting hit in the arm. The science team had seen more military action that day than most scientists, other than Carter and Danny, saw in their whole carriers. And they had earned the respect of every military member of the base when they dragged their teammates body through the wormhole, nearly costing them the lives of two more scientists. When Hammond had asked why, Coombs had looked up, and blankly said what no one had been expecting. 'No man left behind, sir.' Felger had been the other one who'd dragged Dr. Myers home, and he hadn't let go of the other man's sleeve for hours, dead to the world and refusing to leave his friends side.

Sam looked distinctly put out now, upon hearing Jay's recitation, and looked up at Jack, determined to get the words out of her mouth before she could chicken out of it again.

"It was the same with me sir. I was just playing with my brother, then I was watching the news as they announced the attacks in Lebanon when I was sixteen, knowing that my Dad was stationed over there. He was ok in the end, but it was just that sheer terror and confusion before the memories skipped again. Then running from the cops when I, uh, 'borrowed' a car when I was fourteen." If anyone noticed the verbal quotation marks around Carter's phrasing, they probably figure that now was not really a good time to bring it up. "Then getting picked on in elementary school by these girl girls who made fun of my camo and T-shirts. Then… going to my Uncles funeral. Running from the Go'auld, getting split up from the team on an away mission… being with my mom when she died…" Sam paused here for a moment, everyone respectfully silent as she regained her momentum and powered forward. "Daniel getting kidnapped, Daniel almost getting a Go'auld brain swap, a fire fight as we evacuated an off world base… losing Daniel."

"Which time?" Jack asked, tone snarky and tired. Though he seemed grumpy, his snort of laughter gave away that he was trying to lighten the mood, if for no other reason than to snap Sam out of her sudden depression.

"Uh… the second time- I think. Or it could have been the third… I get them kind of mixed up after a while."

"At least we all know what to say at the eulogy at this point."

Sam snorted in a distinctly un-lady like manner, and Jack grinned at his quiet victory before motioning for Sam to get up. "Come on Carter- better go tell Hammond what the dealio is." He'd been hoping to distract her with his use of hip-hop slang, and it had clearly not worked as both Carter and Janet made to disagree, but Jack cut them off at the pass. "Doc, you can get your new brain scan in a couple of hours- once Hammond has been filled in and once Carter has had a chance to get something warm in her stomach and take a nice, long, hot shower. And Carter, you can just forget about playing with you little 'Rock of Misery' until the rest of the tech geeks have taken a better look at it and until Janet has had a chance to prove there's no long term affects from the damn thing. And if you're good, you might even get to have some nice blue jello, now how does that sound?"

Sam had looked about ready to make an argument until Jack had made the offering of Jello-and damn it, that wasn't playing fair! Janet went back to muttering under her breath about uncooperative patients as she sorted through Jay and Sam's medical charts and began straightening up her infirmary again. And if any of the three of them noticed that Jay and Molly were now having a hushed conversation over by his cot, Jay's big hand still held in Molly's tiny, delicate one's, both of them blushing faintly in between nervous whispers and mumbles, then no one thought to bring it up or inform the two that they could return to their work stations now as they sat together in quiet conversation in an isolated corner of the infirmary.


	18. Chapter 18

Guess who found their flash drive…

Ok- so here's the deal. I can't remember what time of year I said it was. So five points to whoever can tell me what month or season we're in. I need to know to plan out the rest of the story. Oh! And let me know if there's anymore one shot or minor characters you guys want to be included somehow and I'll try to squeeze them in (I love doing shout outs to the unloved!)

And now- on with the story. Here's hoping I can clear 150 hits in a weekend (I'm secretly aiming for 200- so spread the word)!

**Chapter Eighteen**

'_Up?'_ Marco's thought speak was rough and hoarse and not very sophisticated, but it was enough for Tobias to understand what the other boy was saying. Rachel raised an eyebrow, quietly impressed; she knew the most she could pull off in her human form as a few vague grunts. Tobias nodded and quietly slipped away behind one of the tables, leaving Rachel and Marco huddled amongst the eerily silent little group of refugees, each of them too caught up in their own thoughts to register the disappearing teen. And, sure enough, just a few minutes later the faint sound of ruffling feathers could be heard from behind the table followed by a quiet whoosh of air as a small, red tailed hawk took off into the fume tainted air, heading for the high ground of the rafters far above the buildings floor. Marco and Rachel sat side by side, the awkward silence only mitigated slightly by the fact that neither of them were actually able to carry on a conversation with the respirators in their mouths. Luckily, they didn't have to wait for too long.

_'There are soldiers in the complex,'_ Tobias all but shouted into their minds. The effects of the fumes were making the hawk in him want to panic, to try and find a way out, to get away, fly away, but he had to stay. He had to help figure out what was going on and how to get his friends out of this fume filled building. Luckily, the fumes were much thinner up higher, but they made it difficult for him to see much more than rolling waves of white and tiny, moving dark shadows beneath him. The fumes making his eyes tear up were doing absolutely nothing to help his supposedly superior hawk sight get an exact fix on what was happening below, but he'd seen enough in the clear air by the elevator shaft where the ammo dressed, gun totting soldiers had descended from to get a good idea of the big picture. Forcing his animal instincts back into the back of his mind, a dangerous thing for any bird of prey to do in the middle of a potential fire fight, he swooped near the elevator shaft, perching on a beam nearby where the air was a bit clearer to get a better look. _'I count at least four- maybe more. Descending from the roof. I'm losing them in the fumes though, I have no idea where they're going. You guys have got to get out of there, now!'_

Tobias heard little more than a growl in response at first before Marco's scratchy, staticky thoughts floated up to him through the fumes like a bad phone connection.

'_Fly.'_ There was another moment of blankness before two more words scratched their way through. _'Go… Away.'_

'_I'm not leaving you guys in here on your own. You've got to get out of here- those guys had some serious firepower Marco, I'm not kidding here. You've got to get out!'_ Tobias was on the verge of panic again, but forced his hawk brain to quiet down, squashing thousands of years of instinct to do so.

'_Back-up.'_

And now Tobias felt like an idiot. Of course- the others must be outside if Ax and Cassie hadn't responded to his thought speak. Hopefully Jake would be with one of them. He spared a brief thought for Cassandra, mentally adding her to the list of people he hoped had made it out ok, but thought no more of it as he watched the last soldier descend down into the rolling white chemical mists and, cocking his head to the side for a moment to listen for any more activity up on the roof, spread his wings and, with an almighty swooping, climbed straight up through the elevator shaft like a feathery bullet. He saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye as he went up, but thought nothing of it as he soared high above the complex.

No one could ever accurately describe the feeling of flying. He knew. He had tried. The others only vaguely understood- they were only ever in bird morph for maybe ten to thirty minutes at a time. But him? He spent all day climbing up amongst the blue, feeling the earth push away from him with each beat of his powerful wings, the ease with which he rode a thermal through the sky, gliding on nothing but a pillow of warmth beneath his wings. The splash of cold as he dove through a cloud, the moisture just rolling off his feathers, the heat of the sun beating down on his back. Rachel pitied him. Was endlessly apologetic that he had become trapped like this. But he wasn't trapped- he was free.

Free from a less than happy home life, from social services checks and foster homes and dead beat relatives passing him from one cousin or uncle to the next. Free from bullies, from pitying teachers and judgmental principals. Free from counting the coins in his pocket, wondering if he had enough change scraped together to buy something to eat. He ate when and what he wanted. Slept where and when he wanted. When the others were at school and Ax was caught up in one of his shows, he would read books or watch TV, only ever morphing human when he felt like drawing or when he went to the library to pick up more books. He had learned more in the last few years than he had in his entire time in the public education system. The sky had no expectations from him, no demands of him other than his respect for its power. Here, he was Tobias. Nothing more, nothing less. And that was okay…

'_Tobias!'_ the screech cut through the air and echoed around in his mind as he swooped towards the edge of the tree line, eyes primed from the sight of familiar figures through the dense foliage. And there, perched precariously amongst the upper branches of a great oak, was a small grey squirrely chattering away at him anxiously_. 'Tobias, you're ok!'_

'_Yeah Cassie- I'm fine, but Rachel and Marco are still trapped in the building.'_

'_What's going on?'_ Cassie asked anxiously, obviously concerned for the welfare of her friends. Jake was standing beneath the tree with Erek and a few others that Tobias thought he recognized as being Chee. Jake stood unmoving, watching him swoop by with an indescribable expression on his face.

'_There are soldiers storming the complex- they gassed the place out, but it doesn't seem to be lethal or anything. Just really unpleasant. Rachel and Marco are huddled together with a few refugees by the tables, all wearing goggles and respirators to protect them from the fumes. I can't find Ax though. I managed to slip away in the confusion, but there's no way they can morph without calling attention to themselves.'_

'_Erek said the Chee got Ax away before they locked the doors, but now we don't know where they've gone.'_

'_What about Cassandra?'_ Cassie seemed slightly put off by the question, as if having temporarily forgotten about her new friend for a brief moment. He couldn't really blame her- they were all so used to counting to five, sometimes six if Erek was involved, that it was difficult to remember a new face in a battle situation. But Cassandra was hardly just another face- she was their target_. 'The Yeerks tried to slug her the other day and now soldiers storm the building she's supposed to be in? There's no way that this is a coincidence. She's got to be who their after.'_

'_I, uh- I don't know for sure,' Cassie admitted reluctantly. 'Erek said she'd already left the building, but I don't really know anymore than that.'_

'_Ok- will you fill in Jake and Erek while I look for Ax and Cassandra? They were supposed to be together at some point, so hopefully they still will be.'_

'_Don't worry about it- we'll figure out how to extract Marco and Rachel and call you back if we need you.'_

'_Got it. Oh, and Cassie?'_

'_Yeah?'_

'_Don't tell Jake it was my idea to split up- you know how cranky he gets when he doesn't get to play leader,_' Tobias commented wryly, eliciting a squirrely smile and a small chuckle from Cassie, relieving some of the tension that had been piling up ever since this whole thing had begun. He was no Marco, that was for sure, but until he could get his friend back out to safety, the least he could do was try and keep them all grounded.

'_You got it bird boy- now go find our friends.'_

Nearly five hundred people lay around the parking lot, some sitting propped up against the cars and building walls and others simply sprawled out across the asphalt, all gasping and wheezing, all struggling to breath, and with eyes red and swollen, some shut as they gave up any attempt at actual sight, others open in a vague attempt to recognize the world around them even though they continued to tear up.

"It's alright. It's going to be alright," Cassandra soothed vaguely to a young girl, likely no older than eight or nine, as she shivered and sobbed, tears streaming down her face, struggling bring herself back down under control. Max was across the lot, trying to get a group of young men to pull themselves together enough to move out of the way of the flood of refugees still trying to claw their way out of the building. The three guys who had been with Max were all scattered across the lot, moving individuals none too gently out of the way. Cassandra glared daggers at one of them as he went by dragging two panicking and wildly struggling men by their wrists to a clear area in the lot. Ignoring for the moment the rather unusual display of strength, she disentangled herself from the young girls grasp, intending to smack some sense and compassion into the young men, when she caught a bit of motion out of the corner of her eye.

There, amongst the trees. She was certain she had seen it, or mostly certain at least. It was just a flicker out of the corner of her eye after all, but she thought she'd seen…

Yes, a flash of brightly colored T-shirts up ahead. There was a small cluster of teens wondering up through the trees in regular street clothes. Maybe they'd gotten out of the building before the doors had locked and the tear gas had gone down. Maybe they hadn't even come in when everything had started going down and were making a run for it. Maybe they'd somehow managed to avoid the gas and had made it outside somehow. However they'd managed it, they were safe, but not for long. Because behind them, following about forty feet behind in the trees, was the familiar pattern of camouflage moving amongst leaves.

There were soldiers, in the trees. Soldiers with guns. Soldiers with guns moving through the trees behind a group of teenagers who knew nothing about them and had no way to defend themselves.

Her feet were moving before she realized what she was doing. This was stupid. Completely and utterly stupid. She was going to get herself killed or, at the very least, shot. And if the men with the guns didn't finish her off, her mother definitely would. This was stupid, and ill conceived and her feet wouldn't stop moving as she ran towards the tree line, her bag banging clumsily against her hip as she did so. She thought she saw someone moving behind her, but she didn't have time to think about that now and she stepped off the asphalt and onto the grass before the tree line. There was no time, she could see the vibrant colors of street clothes up ahead, and the dull, muted tones of the camouflage through the bark closing in on them. The teens were moving around the tree line, trying to get a better vantage point on the building. The soldiers were now only twenty five feet behind them, standing a little further back amongst the trees, moving silently and stealthily through the woods.

She had one hand in her bag, keeping it tucked closer in to her hip so that it wouldn't make so much noise as she ran. She was forty feet away, moving quickly but silently, dancing through the trees, but the soldiers were closing in on the others. The soldiers were bringing their guns to bear, crouching into position just twenty feet away from the group when she gave up on stealth in favor of speed. The leader, crouched up in front, had his fist raised, ready to give the signal to fire.

"Hey ugly!"


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

They couldn't morph. They could barely breath. And the only reason they hadn't been found out by the soldiers yet was that the fumes were making it so hard to see that a half dozen people hiding behind a table barricade was barely noticeable, even to the most highly trained eyes. Though the fact that there hadn't been any gunfire yet was fairly reassuring, everyone's nerves were on edge waiting for the sound of bullets ricocheting through the warehouse. They could hear the sounds of people crying out from the fumes around the now obviously blocked doors, the rest of the echoing area was deadly silent with the exception of the occasional soldiers boot step. Tobias had left almost five minutes ago, and although that wasn't an incredibly long time under normal circumstances, when huddled under a table with a bunch of civilians, unable to use the only line of defense you have for risk of exposure and waiting at any moment for bullets to come ripping through your flesh, five minutes was a considerably longer amount of time than one might think. The rest of the group didn't seem to be fairing too well either as they all sat in huddled silence, terrified and frozen stiff. Rachel looked over as movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Half expecting it to be a gun toting soldier rounding the corner, she was understandably frazzled to see that Marco had pulled out his phone and was apparently texting. Her ire was just beginning to reach it's breaking point when he passed his phone, along with a half completed text message, across to her.

'No signal. Can't contact others. Military block?'

Rachel was startled at first to think that Marco had actually done something useful, something that, although she would never admit this, she herself likely would not have thought of. Quickly sliding out the keyboard, she continued on with the text, a faint sense of relief amidst all the other tension at finally being able to communicate again.

'Could be. Could be the nerds- protecting security.'

Passing the phone back over to Marco, he nodded absently at her message before sending one of his own and handing back the phone.

'Plan?'

'Not sure- need to get civi's out. Tobias?'

'No word. Alternate plan?'

By now the rest of the group had caught on to the little exchange going on between Marco and Rachel and were all watching the cell phone passing from hand to hand with an intensity that was difficult to communicate in words.

'Distract and bolt?'

'Problematic- can't see soldiers, don't know escape route'

'Better option?'

Marco looked deliberating at that last text message for a long while, unable to decide what to do with it. He couldn't particularly think of anything better, but he also knew that if they tried this and things went wrong that people could get seriously hurt or even killed, and he wasn't willing to give his consent to a plan of action in a situation where they had almost no intel. Typing a longer than normal message into his phone, he, instead of just passing it back to Rachel, handed it over to the nearest civilian, who shook his head before passing it along down the line. It wasn't until it had gotten to the middle aged man clutching on to his tearful daughter that a quickly texted response was passed back, Marco holding the phone between them so that Rachel could read the message at the same time.

'We have to try and get out of here before the soldiers find us. Anyone know of an emergency exit or someplace where we can slip out unnoticed? Or a back room where we can hide away from the fumes?'

The older man was clearly not used to texting, but he had gotten his message through clearly enough to be understood. 'bak walj o3fice. i hnow thd way.'

The message was passed around again, everyone starring at the screen in determination, although admittedly some were just starring because it was hard to read text messages on a phone through the goggles. But eventually everyone nodded their consent and turned back to look expectantly at the two young adults who apparently seemed to know more about what was going on than the rest of them combined. Marco nodded and scuttled over to the man, exchanging a rapid fire texting session, complete with wild gesturing, as he told Marco where the back office was. When Marco finally nodded in understanding, he scuttled back over to where Rachel was before passing her entirely and peering cautiously out around the upturned table, squinting against both the fumes and the refraction from the less than ideal pair of lab goggles. Seeing his trouble, Rachel leaned over to one of the other teenage boys and, after a quick but fierce debate consisting entirely of silent gestures, the boy shut his eyes and surrendered his more adequately fitting night vision goggles. Crawling back over to Marco she tapped him on the shoulder and, when he turned back to look at her questioningly, she held up the goggles for him. Marco stopped and stared at her openly for a long moment before purposefully shutting his eyes and removing his own goggles. Handing them off to Rachel, she pressed the better fitting pair of night vision goggles to him and crawled back to hand the other boy the cheap lab goggles as Marco discharged a small amount from his re-breather into the goggles before swiftly putting them on, ensuring that he had clean air in the goggles when he opened his eyes. Or at least… mostly clean he thought remorsefully as his eyes began to water slightly.

Looking back out through the white mists, he could see the faint outlines of moving soldiers much further away than he'd thought they would be. He could also see the forms and figures of fumes victims lying or rolling helplessly on the floor, some unconscious, others resigned to the blindness as they struggled to breathe, coughing and wheezing silently in their agony.

Marco felt a tug on his shoulder and looked back to see Rachel starring at him intently, shaking her head gravely. Marco sighed and hung his head, but quickly turned back to the mission at hand. He knew perfectly well they couldn't help these people, but it didn't make the idea of leaving them behind any easier to deal with. It seemed like that was all they were doing these days- leaving those that were beyond help behind as they just struggled to survive.

Focusing back on the problem in front of him, he began to lead a small, rag tag group of refugees between the chaos and devastation of the Tech World Expo. He would dart across clear alley ways to the shelter and refuge of upturned tables and tossed tents. Marco would lead, making sure the path was clear, and then he and Rachel would usher the rest of the refugees across the path one at a time, the both of them constantly checking to make sure that the path was clear and that the soldiers, whoever they were, were a safe enough distance away to facilitate their escape. It was slow going. And after nearly forty terrifying, tense minutes, they could finally see the far wall. The problem was, there were no overturned tables or capsized tents they could hide behind on their way there. Apparently, the coordinators of the event had some sense in at least keeping the fire paths safe. There was a door on the far wall, apparently left untouched by the soldiers that, based upon the dad's urgent nodding, was the entrance to the back office. One of the teens, one part eager and one part terrified, tried to surge forward into the clearing, but was quickly yanked backward by his collar by both Rachel and Marco. Looking up at the two other teens, he saw them gesture silently towards both ends of the path. A pair of soldiers stood at either end of the path, obviously standing guard.

Rachel turned back to Marco, a vaguely desperate, fearful look on her face as she looked to the class clown for guidance.

_'What do we do now?'_


End file.
